


The Tale of Broken Coffee Machines & Gruesome Murder, Lies and Betrayal

by polite_karkat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Among Us, Among Us, Gen, Karkat Vantas POV, Most of these characters are rlly minor tho, No ships (for now), WIP, but its unrequited, slight Karezi?, the game., yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polite_karkat/pseuds/polite_karkat
Summary: Among all of you, there is a pair of traitors. Eight crewmates and two impostors, stuck on a spaceship in the emptiest space that’s ever possibly existed in the history of multiverses.
Comments: 70
Kudos: 34





	1. New goals, thoughts and problems

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first actual serious fic! English isnt my first language soooo.. my grammar may be fucking up! also I wasnt the only person who participated in this, my good friend helped me a lot with it. 
> 
> constructive criticism is welcome

Among all of you, there is a pair of traitors. Eight crewmates and two impostors, stuck on a spaceship in the emptiest space that’s ever possibly existed in the history of multiverses.  
Your friends are all in the same situation as you are. Gamzee, Sollux, Terezi, Kanaya, Vriska, Rose, Dirk, Dave and Roxy. Although you’re not as familiar with the humans, you can still remember their names, which is... already more than needed. For now.

Walls of grey stand all around you as you walk into the spaceship for the first time ever , making you feel incredibly small. 

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you could’ve never thought of a more boring introduction. 

————————

You take your own time to explore the spaceship, staying close to the other 9 people that’ll stay with you for this whole ‘journey.’ You’re friends with some of them. Gamzee and Sollux are probably going to be the people with whom you’ll spend most of your time as you can already trust them. Walking through the main hallway, you abruptly stop. Your head feels dizzy, you don't exactly understand what’s happening. A wave of feelings floods your body, causing a headache. It’s impossible to properly describe it.  
You’re not sure why or how it’s here, but there’s one thing that you can understand:.

You’re going to protect everyone else from the impostors.

————————

The first day was exhausting to say the least. You mostly spent your time getting used to the spaceship. It’s, well, much bigger than you thought it was. Maybe even too big. You definitely feel exposed in the big empty rooms with walls that are needlessly tall. You also noticed some vents and you can’t help but be nervous around them, you aren’t exactly sure why. The others don’t seem as tense as you are.

Some tasks were assigned to you and so far they don’t seem too complicated. It’s mostly messing with wires and refuelling the engines. The thing that’s actually making you nervous is not knowing when and how the impostors are going to strike. You genuinely have no fucking clue, is it going to be murder? Sabotaging? Lying, deception and betrayal? Probably all of that. You’ll find out eventually. 

You spend the rest of the second day performing tasks, not bothering with socialization or anything else, then head off to sleep in the common bedroom.

————————

“Dude, I think you just broke the coffee machine.”

The kid named Dave’s standing right in front of you. You two are completely alone in the cafeteria and you may or may not have punched said machine a little too hard and now it refuses to work. 

“Well it’s not my fault this useless piece of metal is so fucking fragile!” You spit back, crossing your arms. He’s wearing shades which makes his face unreadable. It’s kind of ridiculous actually, who the fuck wears shades indoors?

“I don’t think coffee machines are built to take hits from angry trolls.” He responds. He’s got a slight accent but you don’t really know where it's from. 

“If you know so much about coffee machines, why don’t you come take a look and actually try to fucking fix it?” You’re too pissed off to actually worry about the potential impostor in front of you. You just want your coffee, is that too much to ask for?

It seems like it is.

Dave grabs it and gives it a small hit, trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. Yeah this really isn’t going anywhere.

“I think you fucking killed it, bro.” 

You shake your head and decide to do things yourself since the smug asshole won’t do it. You push him out of your way and punch it again, harder than you probably should. Then, you hit one of the buttons and to your surprise there is absolutely no response from the poor machine.

“What were you expecting?” You hear from behind you, turning to look at a mildly annoyed Dave. 

“I don’t fucking know! If this pathetic excuse of a coffee machine wasn’t so shitty, maybe we’d have coffee and be doing our daily tasks instead of standing here like two gigantic morons!” You snarl, throwing your arms in the air to express how angry this is making you and giving up on getting your caffeinated drink today. You turn around to walk away but keep an eye on Dave. He might try to kill you after this. No one really knows. Though the human quietly stands there, hands in his pockets staring right back at you. Even with the shades covering his eyes, you can tell that he’s staring at you.

You quickly leave the cafeteria and try to ignore how tired you’re getting. You’ve only got a few tasks left and you’ll be done for the day. 

———————

Okay, fixing wires isn't as easy as you first thought it would be. Maybe it’s just because you’re an idiot, which is definitely likely. After messing with the confusing wires for a little while, you decide to leave them like that. Someone will eventually fix it, yeah. You haven’t really been paying attention to your surroundings but, now that you aren’t busy with tasks, you can actually do that. The room you’re in is a bit small, with computers, wires and other tech that’s way too advanced for you to understand. 

You’re ready to head out of the electrical room when someone steps in front of you, blocking the exit. It’s Terezi. 

“What?” You say first.

She grins and shrugs.  
“Making sure you’re good!”

What, is she the leader now or something?

“What if you’re the impostor?” Is the first thing that comes out of your mouth. You do consider her a friend but, in circumstances like these, you aren’t sure if you can trust her. Or anyone else, actually.

She lets out an over dramatic sigh,

“Oh, come on, Karkles, even if I were the imposter, you know I would save you for last.” Her grin widens, exposing her sharp troll teeth. She looks really confident and you’re kind of jealous. How can she be so certain and laid back while stuck with nine other hopeless idiots who might just try to stab her? You’ll never understand this girl. You aren’t sure you want to, either. 

None of you say anything. You’re just kind of staring at each other, except she’s not literally staring at you because she’s blind. You eventually decide to break the silence with probably the most vague and trivial sentence. 

“I’ll be in the cafeteria.”


	2. Fixed it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter of the among us homestuck AU! I tried to make it more interesting than the last. More shit happens

You’re currently waiting for Terezi at the cafeteria. She should be done with her tasks by now, so you’re wondering what’s taking her such a long time. Everyone should eat at the cafeteria at the same time for safety reasons so she’s breaking one of the rules. You stare down at your own plate, full of gross human food that you’re clearly not excited about. Apparently, human food is ‘easier to grow’ which you don’t believe at all since troll food is literally superior in every single way, including cost of production. It’s causing you to feel barely hungry if at all. You’ll just give it to Gamzee or Sollux like you usually do, although you doubt these two living skeletons would eat more than what they already have.

Speaking of your two best friends— none of them are with you either. Actually, they’re not in the cafeteria at all. So you’re just sitting at a table, alone, which is kind of depressing, actually. 

It’s not long until you can spot the teal blooded girl running towards you with a wide, evil grin. 

“Hey. Where were you?” you say first as she sits at your table, putting her own plate on it. 

“I was in electrical,” she responds, out of breath.

“What were you even doing there? I thought you had no tasks assigned at electrical,” you probably come off as an over-controlling asshole but you’re a bit pissed at her for taking so long to get to the cafeteria.

“Non-suspicious activities.” Her grin widens, exposing all of her razor sharp troll teeth. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t find it charming in a way. 

“That does sound very suspicious, Pyrope.” You don’t actually think she’s the impostor— if anything, she’s the person you trust the most on this entire fucking spaceship. She just doesn’t strike you as the type of person to betray her friends.

Terezi giggles and starts to eat her own food. You spend a lot of time with her this day, talking and ranting about everything that's happened so far— which is definitely not much, for now at least.   
You have a decent night (day?) of sleep for once, feeling relaxed enough to actually close your eyes and let your guard down.

———————

Your dreams aren’t as gruesome or as violent as usual. 

You’ve never felt so damn light in your entire life. Not even in space, and it’s like you can basically fly wherever you want. The place you’re in is an empty black void with nothing and nobody anywhere. Some weird instinct keeps telling you to do your tasks, do your tasks and you can’t make it stop. You start to look for broken wires, engines that need fuel, and coffee machines to fix. Actually, scratch that. Fixing a coffee machine is not a task, it’s a necessity. (It’s also not on the list of tasks to do.) 

You wander in your own mind and thoughts, feeling eerily peaceful.

———————

You get woken up by your tablet’s alarm, and you immediately shut it off. You’re pretty sure you’re the last person to wake up. You all share a single large room for sleep with bunk beds on each side, it both makes you feel safe and scared, which is kind of hard to describe and doesn’t make much sense, either. 

It takes a while for your body to actually gather the willpower and energy to get out of your comfortable padded sleeping platform that humans call a ‘bed’. God you miss proper terminology. Whoever built that ship forgot about troll’s existence as there are no recuperacoons at all. You climb off of the ladder, jump to your feet, and land a bit clumsily. You grab your shoes and put them on, spotting Gamzee in the corner of the room with Roxy, Rose, and Kanaya chatting about something. Gamzee turns to look at you and grins in the same lazy and kind of dazed way that he usually does when he sees you and comes to greet you.

“‘Sup, motherfucker.” His voice sounds a bit quieter than usual but it’s probably because he just woke up.

“Hey.” You rub your eyes, still feeling a bit sleepy.

“Has my good bro gotten any sleep?” The purpleblood in front of you asks, somehow smiling even more. You have no clue how he does that.

“More than usual.” You respond. 

He wraps an arm around your shoulder and you flinch a bit at the physical contact. Gamzee doesn’t seem to notice.

“Great motherfuckin’ news, bro.” He pats your shoulder and you shrug his hand off. 

“It’s not like I need sleep to function properly.”

He laughs and you both leave the common bedroom to grab a small snack at the cafeteria.

“So. Do you have to do a lot of tasks today?” You ask, looking up at him.

“Nah, bro. Nothin’ much, ain’t got no time to worry ‘bout that shit.” He pauses. “Got time to relax and chill, brother?” His sharp teeth are poking over his lips, and he would actually look threatening if he wasn’t smiling like a huge dumbass.

“Relaxing and chilling doesn’t go well with being a trustworthy and efficient crewmate. Do you even do your fucking tasks?” Honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t.

Gamzee doesn’t answer, instead he just looks at you and shrugs, still smiling. 

You stay with him during ‘breakfast’ (you still need to get used to human words. They just sound so stupid) and he refuses to eat anything.

———————

When you refuel the lower engine, something feels strangely off. You get distracted by your brain bombarding you with random questions, causing you to stop paying attention to your current task. What if you were the impostor? Would you know who the other impostor was? Probably.

A metallic creaking noise followed by a loud thud echoes in the room you’re in, taking you by complete surprise before the dim light blinks, flashes and then suddenly disappears completely, turning the room you’re in into blinding darkness. 

You get up and frantically look around, feeling like your bloodpusher’s going to explode. A few footsteps hint at the presence of somebody else in the room and holy shit, you’re pretty damn sure nobody was in the room before the lights went off! You’ve never been this terrified for your life. Is that it? Is that how you’re going to die?

It takes a while for your survival instincts to kick in, but when they do you don’t think you’ve ever ran this fast in your entire miserable life. The hallways are dark and cold but fuck if it’s going to stop you. You’re exhausted when you stop and you’re pretty sure you’ve escaped from whatever threat there was back in the other room, you didn’t even get to finish refueling the fucking engine!

You’ve been carrying a flashlight this whole time, and it seems like now’s the moment to turn it on. You mess with it a little before it randomly switches on, lighting up the place you’re in and you notice that you’re not alone. You recognize Dirk, (that’s his name if you remember correctly, although you might be wrong) who looks like a carbon copy of Dave, the only real difference is the fact that his body’s angles are much sharper than Dave’s, and Sollux standing with you. You’re the first to speak.

“What in the everloving fuck even happened? Did you guys see that?!” You throw your arms in the air, letting your voice grow louder with each word. Dirk stays completely still and his facial expression doesn’t even twitch at your harsh tone. You guess it’s a Strider thing.

“Kk, you need to chill the fuck out. Someone just messed with the lights and now we can’t see anything. It should get fixed soon enough.” Sollux says back. The goldblood doesn’t look nervous about this at all! Mildly annoyed at best. You start to feel like you’re overreacting, especially with how little shits the two others here give.

“I need to chill the fuck out? I need to chill the fuck out?” You repeat, furious. “Something— fuck knows what— was chasing me in the hallways! How the hell am I supposed to chill out, Sollux?! Tell me! Fucking tell me!” You‘re so close to punching the smug look off his face. Your own raspy voice echoes through the room and nearby hallways and you’re pretty sure everyone in the spaceship who has functioning ears heard you scream at Sollux.

“I’m going to have to side with Sollux there,” Dirk starts, crossing his arms, “You should chill. Get some coffee or something. Relax.” His voice is completely monotone and somehow even less expressive than Dave’s, which you considered completely impossible up until you heard Dirk.

Before you can answer, the lights turn back on. You sigh of relief.

Sollux and Dirk look as surprised as you are. You’re looking up at the lights, feeling the relief flood your chest. The other troll shrugs and walks out, leaving you in the same room as Dirk.

“I would be getting coffee if the shitty machine wasn’t broken.” You say.

“Oh. I might be able to fix it if it’s what’s pissing you off so much, then.” You realize he has the same wacky accent as Dave. Are they fucking twins or some shit?

“You can do that?” 

Dirk nods. “Yeah. I’m used to repairing shit.”

———————

You’re currently standing right behind Dirk who’s been unscrewing and rescrewing the coffee machine and doing some cool tech stuff for like, 10 minutes already. There isn’t anyone else in the cafeteria, making the place much quieter than what you’re normally used to. So you fill the silence with your own voice.

“When is it going to be fixed?” You ask, trying to look at what he’s doing and probably invading his personal space.

“Soon.” He really has a way with words. 

And by that, you mean that you hate how overly vague his responses are. Maybe he’s passively telling you to fuck off but you aren’t going to do that.

“Go get a cup and water. We’ll see if this shit is working.” He says.

You do as he says, coming back with your favorite ‘’Time To Crab’’ mug with a small angry crab on it and you put some water in the machine, some ground coffee on the other side, and wait for it to heat up, already placing your mug under the small coffee tap thing that you don’t know the name of.

The coffee machine rattles, makes noises that sound like a printer getting thrown under a car and holy shit.

Is your dream of caffeinated drinks and working coffee machine coming true right before your own very eyes?

It’s happening. It’s fucking happening.

You’re pretty sure Dirk can see the pure expression of delight and joy on your face, you’re close to crying, too. But you don’t care. 

You grab your mug with shaking hands, full of warm coffee. You’re going to drink it like that, you don’t care.

You sip it loudly. You notice Dirk also got his own cup of coffee, straight faced as usual. He doesn’t even look happy or proud. 

“Thanks. For, uh. Fixing it.” You say.

Dirk looks at you. He shrugs.  
“I would’ve fixed it anyway. You’re not the only one on this spaceship with a caffeine addiction.” 

You lean against the table, sipping your coffee and savoring it like you’ve never done before instead of actually responding to Dirk.

Buzzing goes off in your pocket, followed by an alarm. You guess it’s your tablet, which you take out of your pocket. 

The tablet is still buzzing. You set your mug on the table and notice people running into the cafeteria, what even is happening. Some words show up on the screen of your tablet, catching your attention.

You read ‘DEAD BODY REPORTED’ in bright red and caps and holy crap, wait a minute.

Did someone die?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! again, im not the only one who participated in the writing of this fic. my friend helped me a lot with it and you should also thank him. reminded that english is not my first language so expect a few errors to b here and there, and constructive critisism is welcome as i want to improve my writing. hope you liked it :)


	3. Possessive

When everyone’s arrived at the cafeteria, you all decide to stand around the same table. Everyone here looks as equally shocked and afraid as you are as none of you actually know what to expect. The fact that you’re all in the same boat of uncertainty and uneasiness is comforting in a strange way.

Vriska’s the first to speak.

“Where was the body found?” She starts. You notice her finger nervously tapping against the table, you guess that she’s waiting for an answer. With each second that passes the cerulean blooded troll seems to get increasingly more impatient. 

“I discovered it in the reactor room.” A clear voice behind you speaks. You turn and recognize the human girl with blond hair whose name must be Rose. You assume she’s the one who reported the body. For someone who just found a corpse, she looks surprisingly calm and collected. She’s either a master at the arts of hiding her emotions or just an actual sociopath.

She walks and stands on Vriska’s opposite side of the table, facing her with a somewhat challenging gaze. You have to admit, Rose is pretty intimidating. You’d like to be her friend, but now is definitely not the time to create new bonds.

You look down at your tablet and you notice one person missing, it’s Roxy. The one who looks eerily similar to Rose. Apparently they’re ‘human related’, and you’ll be honest, you have no idea what that actually means. Either way, someone’s dead which means that the impostors are starting to get the hang of it, and by ‘it’, you mean murdering every single crewmate left on this spaceship in cold blood, which you’re not exactly thrilled about.

“I assume she was murdered during the light outage.” Kanaya says. She’s standing next to Vriska, who looks at her when she says that.

“It’s likely.” Dirk, who’s next to you, speaks.

“Who even fixed the lights?” You ask. It could help confirm people as innocent.

“I did. I was with Dave the whole time. He knows I’m innocent.” Terezi responds, grinning at the human.

Oh. 

Your first instinct is to angrily glare at Dave (which you do) and he definitely notices. That fucker smirks at you and shrugs. What a smug bastard. You’d be reminding him of all his flaws if there wasn’t an important meeting going on right now, so you try to take a deep breath and furrow your eyebrows, redirecting your gaze to Gamzee. He’s been standing there, barely saying anything. Is he even listening?

“So Terezi and Dave were together, and Terezi fixed the lights, which means they can’t be the impostors.” Vriska starts to look at you like she’s trying to read your mind, as if she’s implying that you might be guilty of fucking murdering Roxy. Honestly, you doubt you’d be able to murder anyone. Not because of any physical weakness, more like it would haunt you for the rest of your life. Now you’re actually glad you’re not the impostor. 

You shift uncomfortably under her vicious gaze, obviously not wanting to be seen as suspicious. 

“I was with Dirk and Sollux. In the O2 block.” You cross your arms and stare back at her. “Where were you, Serket?” 

Vriska lets out an overdramatic sigh, “It’s not that important,” She starts, “but if you really want to know, then I was actually in admin.” Her voice sounds condescending and you decide to clench your fists instead of saying anything back, probably for the better.

“Where were you, Kanaya?” Sollux speaks for the first time since the meeting has started. You’re surprised he’s questioning her out of all people, hell, Gamzee is easily ten times more suspicious than her. But Sollux is an idiot and you know that questioning his choices is not a good idea whatsoever.

“Oh, me? I was in Medbay the whole time.” Kanaya looks surprised too. You really doubt she’s the impostor.

You place your hands on your waist and wait for the next person to speak, scanning the crowd of people in front of you. You take a look at your tablet and realize that the voting phas is in 30 seconds.

“So. Who are we voting out?” You ask. 

“I think we should skip, dude. We don’t have leads. Or clues, really.” Dave answers, crossing his arms. 

He’s probably right. You nod and everybody else seems to agree. You hit the ‘skip vote’ button on your tablet and when the voting phase ends, you can see everybody’s votes which is actually a nice feature. Colorful icons pop right next to the ‘skip button’ option, each one belonging to someone here.

When the meeting finally ends, you notice Terezi and Dave talking and can hear her giggling the same way she usually does when you say something dumb, but this time, it’s with him and not with you. You can’t help the small feeling of jealousy that sparks in your heart. 

You decide to forget it. It’s not that important anyway, right? 

—————————

You decided to spend the rest of your boring day at security, observing the spaceship through the cameras that are scattered throughout the whole place. No one else is with you, leaving you alone with the constant buzzing of the lights as ‘company’ and your thoughts.

The only real thing that’s been ravaging your mind is the way Terezi and Dave interact. You’ve noticed them speaking before that. It’s not like you’re trying to control her anything, you just doubt that Dave would be good for her. He’s a self centered asshole and he’s obviously been putting the moves on her. You really want to talk to Terezi about this. There’s no way you’re going to let her and Dave become a thing. 

No way. 

You’re leaning on the desk, staring at the cameras and carefully watching what’s on display for you. Honestly, nothing really interesting has appeared yet. On one screen, you’ve seen Rose and Kanaya walking through the hallways, on another screen, you can see Dave heading to medbay before he disappears, walking out of the camera’s reach. On another screen, you notice Terezi walking around and your attention stays on her. Your eyes are starting to hurt.

You hear something shift behind you and sharply turn, staring at whoever’s entered the room. 

It’s Vriska. Fuck.

“Don’t you have tasks to do, asswipe?” You say first, purposefully coming off as over aggressive.

You notice a faint smile making its way on her lips. “Oh, Karkat. You don’t always have to be soooo grumpy, I was just checking on you, Jegus.” You really hate the way she makes everything she says sound so much more dramatic than it actually is.

“I don’t see why you would do that, Serket. Tell me why you’re actually here. Is it to murder me? Are you the impostor and am I about to get fucking stabbed in the most violent and brutal way possible? Make it quick, if that’s your intentions.” You tense up a bit but your voice stays steady. You’re joking about it but she might just try to kill you.

Maybe she is the impostor. Maybe these are the last moments of your life. Your bloodpusher speeds up at that thought.

“You really are starting to lose your mind, Vantas. For your information, I was just looking for something to do, but it seems King Karkat has already claimed his rightful place in the most booooring and saaaad block.” She lets out one of her overdramatic sighs.

“Will you shut the actual fuck up for once? If you don’t have anything else to do, you can just look at the cameras with me.” You suggest, rolling your eyes at her theatrical antics.

She smirks and walks up to the screens, stopping right next to you. She’s taller than you are, but so is probably everyone else on this spaceship. Except Rose. She’s shorter than you and you take pride in that.

“Have you seen anything weird happen on the cameras?” She turns to look at you, hands on her hips.

“Not really. I would’ve told you if suspicious shit happened.” You don’t bother to look at her to answer. Your own hands are on the desk, tapping it with the tip of your fingers in a nervous way. 

A voice behind both of you starts to speak.

“Oh, hello.”

You immediately recognize it as Kanaya’s voice and turn to look at her. She’s standing in the middle of the room, looking a bit lost. 

“Hey.” You say. “Where’s Rose?” You noticed that she was with Rose the whole time through cameras, so you were expecting Kanaya to be with her. 

You notice the jadeblood’s cheeks blush a tiny bit. You aren’t sure you want to know why, and in response, she smiles innocently. “Rose had to finish her own tasks, I did not want to bother her.”

“I doubt you were actually bothering her.” You say back without even thinking, getting a bit distracted.

“I couldn’t really tell, with all of her,” She pauses, “Human sarcasm.” 

You’re pretty confused. Sarcasm is not an exclusively human thing. You’re pretty sure it’s universal.

“Can you not tell the difference between sarcasm and genuine speech?” You ask. Even Vriska looks amused, though, she stays focused on the cameras unlike you. 

“I have been trying to, Karkat.” She responds, sounding completely serious. 

A small smile appears on your own lips. “Whatever, I’m pretty sure you’ll figure it out. Have you finished your tasks for today?” 

Kanaya nods, “I have.” She walks a bit closer to you two, looking at the screens like she’s never seen them before. “Are those the camera screens?” She asks.

“They are.” Vriska answers her question before you can. 

The room is getting a bit crowded. Three people is too much for only four screens, so you decide to step back. “I’m heading out.” Before any of them can answer, you’re out of the security block. Now where to go? You want to spend more time with Terezi, so you go looking for her. 

You wander in the hallways, barely paying attention to your surroundings. The atmosphere feels off, like you’re missing something. You decide to push that sensation at the back of your mind and ignore it completely, instead focusing on your own footsteps that are echoing through the vast empty space that are the seemingly endless hallways of this fucking spaceship, making you subconsciously speed up. This place is so empty and if the impostor saw you, you doubt anyone would help you. 

The lights flicker a bit but it’s not really a problem. You’re used to it. This whole feeling of uneasiness is only temporary, nothing bad’s going to happen to you. Right? 

A figure appears right in front of you, causing you to nearly bump into them. Your first instinct is to scream, which you do. You jump back as a reflex and look at whoever just scared the fuck out of you, eyes wide.

Of course, it’s the red asshole. Dave, who also looks scared before he goes back to looking like his usual uninterested self, running a shaky hand through his own hair.

“Sup.”

“Oh my god, you fucking dick!” You’re done with this asshat. “You scared the everliving fuck out of me! Watch where the actual hell you walk next time, grubfuck! Is it that hard for you to actually do basic things like watching where the fuck you go? You almost gave me a bloodpusher attack, I might’ve just died and it would’ve been all your fault! All your fucking fault!” 

You take a step closer, stopping right in front of him. He stands his ground, and you just want to hit him as brutally as you can. No mercy for assholes. 

“Dude. Holy fuck, can you chill? I didn’t want to scare you.” 

And with that, you lose your shit. How can he, the literal king of assholes, expect you to chill? You’d be able to chill if it was literally anyone else. 

You do the obvious thing and try to punch him in the face.

Something quick grabs your wrist and a painful knee finds its way to your stomach, hitting you right where it hurts. You try to pull your hand back but he won’t let go.

“Dude, not cool.” He sounds the same. Not scared or angry. The same.

“Fuck off, let me go!” Dave probably notices how scared you sound and lets you go. Instead of running away, you glare at him, putting a hand on your stomach.

Dave crosses his arms. The only thing that betrays his emotionless facade is the slight frown on his face. “Have you seen Terezi?” 

You decide to bring it up. “She’s not into you, you know.” 

The human in front of you raises an eyebrow, “Cool. Why do you care so much about her feelings towards me?”

You almost choke on your own spit when you hear that. “Because— she’s my friend! And I’m her friend.”

“A friend shouldn’t be so controlling, you know.” 

This feels like a hit to the chest. You nearly recoil at that. 

“What the fuck are you even talking about? Me and Terezi’s relationship is none of your business, assface.” You snarl.

“Dude,” He starts, “You’re not the only person who’s allowed to spend time with her.”

You start to feel sick. How is that any of his business? Are you really treating Terezi this badly?

“Of course I’m not!” You get surprised by how quiet your voice is. 

“Then stop acting like it.” His own voice gets louder than it usually is.

This isn’t really going anywhere. You decide to walk past him.

“Wait.” He says behind you.

You speed up, leaving him in the hallway until you’re quite literally running away from your problems. 

Maybe you’ll face them another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longer chapter than usual i think?? anyway it was really fun to write


	4. Goodnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> longer than usual!! im tired
> 
> rse and kanaya r probbaly super ooc i did m y best :sob::sob::sob:

After what had happened with Dave, you’re much more careful around him in general. You’ve caught him looking in your direction multiple times, his intentions remaining a complete mystery due to his aviator shades that are covering at least half of his face and his coolkid attitude which you cannot stand one bit. 

Not that you’re afraid of him, you could easily injure him. Humans are soft, squishy and would definitely lose a duel against an alternian troll, no matter what caste they fit in. Seriously, their teeth are so blunt, it’s fucking miraculous how they survived back on their home planet. Your point is, there is no way in hell you’re afraid of Dave.. you just strongly dislike having to interact with him, that’s all.

Other thoughts such as ‘who is the impostor’ and ‘who is going to die next’ distract your thinkpan away from Dave, definitely for the better. 

Though right now is probably not the best time to overthink about what’s been happening so far because you’re trying to fall asleep, which reveals itself to be surprisingly hard tonight. You’re pretty sure everyone else is asleep as you tend to sleep later than most of the other people here, leaving you alone with yourself.

Are you really treating Terezi this badly?

Now that you think about it, yes could be a reasonable answer. Part of you wants to believe that you can still improve yourself in ways that will make you appear less controlling, and part of you tells you that nothing is wrong with you and that Dave is just trying to get under your skin.

You sure as hell aren’t letting him do that, you’re going to figure out who the impostors are all by yourself and do all the work, only to prove to him and Terezi that you’re not as bad as he thinks you are. 

Another part of you, though smaller, tells you to stop obsessing about Dave and what he thinks of you. 

You’re not going to do that.

——————

The hallway you find yourself in is dark. So much darker than it’s supposed to be. So dark, in fact, that even the vast space outside the thick windows looks brighter and safer than the spaceship you’re currently in.

A silence heavier than anything you could have ever imagined is crushing you. Your bloodpusher is pounding against your chest so loudly that you can hear it roaring in your own ears, all your senses are screaming and telling you to find somewhere to hide, but you aren’t sure what you’re supposed to hide from. Everything in this place makes you feel small and weak.

Something is watching you. 

Lights flicker, revealing blood splattered against the walls only to create a morbid rainbow mess of muddy colors. Is.. everyone else dead? No. No. Only Roxy died. This isn’t right.

Then it all goes dark again. 

You look behind yourself, staring at nothing in the darkness. You keep walking, being as quiet and small as a squeakbeast, not wanting to be uncovered by whoever’s hunting you down.

You need to get out of here.

The initial silence has now been replaced by footsteps that are definitely not yours. You turn, squinting to try and see something in the darkness and spot a blurry silhouette, slowly rising up before its eyes lock on you. 

It knows you’re here.

Before you can even think, your body already makes the decision to run as fast as you can, giving up on being quiet and instead focusing on getting the fuck away from whatever’s threatening to end your life. The lights flicker again, showing you the way as if it’s trying to help you. Your own disordered and chaotic breathing echoes through the room you’re in, mixed with terrified whimpers you aren’t even trying to hide.

Is this how you’re going to die?

Your run for life comes to a stop when you realize you trapped yourself in a room, the door closing itself with a thud. Shit, shit, where the fuck are you going now? Maybe you can hide. Yeah. Hide. There’s no way in hell you’re fighting that thing. Your small size can be useful for once, you think as you sit in a corner, right behind a table. 

You assume this is admin, yeah. Heavy footsteps get closer and closer, and you only make yourself smaller and smaller, putting your hand on your own mouth and completely stop breathing. The footsteps cease. Seconds feel like days. Time is stopped.

It’s quiet.

Maybe you can make it out alive?

…

Something grabs your neck and violently pulls you out of your hiding spot, its grip only tightening around you when you try to squirm away.

You force your eyes shut, clenching your fists. The only thing that breaks the awful silence that’s been haunting you is a voice that sounds close and distant at the same time, so familiar and so foreign.

“Hey, motherfucker.”

The world around you starts to spin, before it all goes black for what feels like seconds, minutes or even hours until your perception of time goes back to normal. 

Your eyes shoot open. At first, everything is blurry but then you can recognize messy black hair, two big wavy horns and a dazed grin right in front of your fucking face. Your first reflex is to scream as you have no clue what’s even going on, until you realize that you’re still in your padded sleeping platform.

“Shit, brother, didn’t mean to be all out and scarin’ you out of your motherfucking body.” The purpleblood who invaded your sleeping space apologizes, looking guilty.

Your breathing is still in a state of chaos but now that you know there isn’t really anything to be afraid of—for now—you let your anger out instead of acting like a scared animal.

“Gamzee, you fucking shitlord! Do you even have a clue of how much you scared me? And what in the wriggling grubfuck are you even doing in my bed while I’m asleep?! Have you lost all notions of personal space, is that it? Has your sopor-rotten excuse of a thinkpan finally reached its pathetic limits?!” You start to freak out a little.

“Nothin’ much, Kar. You were just all up and makin’ all those terrified noises like something was up, get me bro? Just wanted to make sure you weren’t dyin’ or anything.”

“Oh my god.” Now you’re embarrassed. “Gamzee, look, I’m completely fine! Go back to sleep.” You tell him, feeling your face heat up due to the cocktail of emotions boiling inside of you. It went from extreme terror to confusion to anger.

“Can’t go back to motherfuckin’ sleep, bro.” He doesn’t move one bit and you sit up. He’s comfortably sat right next to you, watching you with curious eyes.

You glare back at him and hear some shifting come from the corner of the block. Shit, you really hope you didn’t wake anyone up by screaming and aggressively whispering. Seems like you did, oops.

“Is everything okay?” Kanaya’s voice speaks up and you look down at her from your current position. Bunkbeds are great, but only when you get the spot on top, because then you can look down on people.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You answer, voice tired.

The Gamzee next to you’s still smiling like he usually does. It’s stupidly endearing in a way, just because his idiotic grin is so fitting. 

You don’t think you can go back to sleep either, and it’s probably time to wake up anyway. You climb down the ladder and jump to the floor, putting your shoes on. Gamzee stays on your padded platform, probably zoning out as he usually does. Whatever, you’ll let him stay there. 

You notice that Dirk, who usually sleeps on the padded platform below yours, is still asleep so you try to be as quiet as possible. Rose seems to be awake as well and she’s looking mildly confused and you assume she just woke up. You notice Kanaya’s on Rose’s bed, sitting right next to her. They seem to be speaking to each other but it’s too quiet for your ears to understand what they’re saying. 

“Hey!” You look at Kanaya and then Rose, squeezing yourself between them in the most uncomfortable and awkward way possible, not wanting to be left alone. Swag.

“Greetings.” Rose says, politely smiling at you. Her eyes are a deep shade of purple, staring right into your soul.

“What were you two talking about?” You ask, genuinely curious about the answer. You avoid her gaze, looking at Kanaya instead. Rose really is quite intimidating, you aren’t even sure why.

“Nothing of importance.” Kanaya says, ruffling your hair in an affectionate way.

“Yeah, okay. I’m assuming I woke both of you up,” You pause. None of them say anything back, “which I’m really fucking sorry about.” You finish.

You notice that they are both looking at each other, sharing the same amused smile.

Kanaya stands up, changing the topic. “We probably should start heading to the cafeteria. People are asleep, I would not want to wake them up.” Her voice is quiet and you kind of agree, waking up more people than you already have would be an assweed move. The three of you start heading out of the respiteblock to the cafeteria.

Rose redirects her eyes at you, opening her mouth to say something.

“Perhaps you could replace my tablet as an alarm, you’re doing a wonderful job at waking me up.” There’s no actual aggression of anger behind her voice, it’s actually surprisingly calm and soothing. 

“You wish.” You say as you walk into the cafeteria.

Your eyes, heavy with sleep land on the coffee machine, the one that’s been through a lot of shit already. 

You find your favorite mug, the stupid looking one with a crab and get some water to brew that miracle elixir that’s going to keep you awake and focused throughout the rest of the day.

You pour the water where it should go and place your mug under the faucet-coffee thing which you don’t know the name of at all.  
Rose also gets her own cup of coffee, Kanaya sticks to water.

You three sit at the big table, the one that has the emergency button and relax a bit while sipping your warm coffee, crossing your legs. It’s quiet, you doubt anyone else is awake right now. You look at your tablet and see it’s not too early in the morning so you guess people should start waking up soon.

Rose leans towards Kanaya and whispers something in her ear, causing her to chuckle in response before Kanaya responds with another whisper in Rose’s ear, acting like you’re not even here. 

“Wow, the audacity.” You start. “Are you two seriously shit-talking me behind my back while I’m literally in front of you?” You make the joking tone in your voice obvious, as you aren’t actually mad at them.

“My deepest apologies,” Rose pauses to sip her coffee, “I did not want to make you feel left out of our conversation at all. In fact, I would find it interesting if you could participate in it.” She slightly leans forwards, showing her interest.

You see this as an invitation to actually get to know her, since you’ve never had a real conversation with Rose outside of your tasks.

“Well, what the fuck do you actually want me to say?” You say, sipping your coffee.

Kanaya shifts a bit next to you. You notice there isn’t anyone else in the cafeteria, as it’s early in the morning.

“How about telling us what had terrified you to the point of screaming this morning?” This kind of catches you off guard, but honestly, you can’t really blame her for wanting to know what the fuck even happened.

“Nightmare, mixed with a grubshitting clown who completely forgot about basic fucking decency is what happened.”

“Oh, I see. Do nightmares usually occupy your sleep?” The human smiles at you. Wow, she seems genuinely interested in what you have to say!

“I have them a lot, I guess?” You put some emphasis on the last part of your sentence, shrugging. “It’s mostly because there is not even a single droplet of sopor slime on this godforsaken spaceship. Whoever designed this flying piece of shit clearly didn’t think about trolls and instead, opted for shitty human sleeping platforms.”

The light-haired girl hums in response.

“I need to get my tasks done, I have quite a lot of those to do today.” Kanaya looks at you then Rose, standing up. She hasn’t really been participating to the conversation much and really you hope it’s not your fault, maybe your presence makes her uncomfortable? Fuck, no, you and Kanaya are great friends. 

Rose pauses her disturbing gazing-right-into-your-soul session to throw a smile in Kanaya’s direction, and woah, it looks actually genuine. Rose is evolving. “I’ll see you soon, Kanaya.” 

“Alright, stay safe.” You say. 

Kanaya smiles in return and starts to head off, leaving you and Rose alone. You both look at eachother, before she picks up the conversation topic again.

“I’m assuming trolls tend to have plenty of unpleasant dreams, which is why your species requires sopor slime to peacefully sleep.” 

“Yeah. Who could have guessed?” You raise an eyebrow, voice heavy with sarcasm. You’re starting to get a bit annoyed by her questions, but sadly for you, it doesn’t look like she’s going to stop with those anytime soon.

Rose finishes her coffee. Before she can say anything, you decide that it’s your turn to ask dumb questions.

“So, how long have you known Kanaya for?” You ask, changing the topic completely. Your arms are crossed and you lean back against the plastic chair, waiting for a response. You give yourself a slightly authorative look in a way that makes you feel like you’re trying to mimic Rose.

“Oh, I’ve only known her since the beginning of the.. this.” She stumbles on her words a bit when she says that, which you thought wasn’t possible for her. Seriously, everything she usually says sounds so clear and confident in a way where she still keeps that strange mysterious aura around her voice you can’t really understand.

“And you two are already like, bestest buddies? Don’t get me wrong, Lalonde, It’s not a bad thing.” You precise, not wanting to sound too judgemental. See, you actually care about the way she views you.

“I wouldn’t use that term, but we both happen to have the same interests which helped us bond.. quickly.” She smiles at you when she say that. It mostly looks like a front, you can tell when people are ‘faking’ their emotions, but Rose does it in a way that doesn’t worry as much as it should. “How long have you known her for?”

“Ever since we were grubs. I genuinely don’t think I can remember when? It’s not like I keep track of when I meet people, that would make me look like a gigantic creep. Which I’m not.” You respond. 

Rose nods, and you finish your own coffee.

You notice more people walk into the cafeteria. And by more people, you mean Dirk and Sollux. You decide to wave at them.

They both seem to notice you and sit at the same table you’re sat at once they get their own coffee.

“Hey, asshat.” That’s your way of saying ‘Good morning’ to Sollux.

Dirk and Rose chat for a bit, and you sometimes join into their conversation. Overall, It’s not very chatty between the 4 of you today, so you decide to get up and leave to do your own tasks, muttering a ‘talk to you later’ you doubt anyone heard.

‘Hallways’ is where you are right now. You don’t even know which one you’re in. The tasks today were boring as usual, as it mostly consisted of refuelling the engines and downloading shit at the cafeteria to transfer it to fuck-knows-where.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel a bit lonely.

The grey walls stretch in front of you with each step. You kind of already have an internal map of the spaceship, so you don’t even need to look at your tablet for directions now. You can go back to security… or you could be trying to find out who the impostors are.

Now that you’re actually going through complex cerebral activity for once, you decide to proceed in a logic and easy-to-understand way.

You’re not the impostor, which leaves 8 other people. You’ve been alone with Vriska, and she didn’t try to kill you, so no matter how much you dislike her, she’s likely not the impostor. Kanaya’s safe too. You aren’t sure why, but you know she is. It’s just some kind of gut feeling which you probably shouldn’t be trusting, but decide to trust anyway. Dave is an ass and you hate everything about his existence but you doubt he’s actually the impostor, which leaves Gamzee, Sollux, Terezi, Dirk, and Rose.

You aren’t really sure now. Those are all your friends, even Dirk. He fixed the coffee machine afterall. Gamzee’s your best friend, and you doubt he actually has a clue of what he’s doing, so even if he was an impostor, you doubt he’d actually be a threat. Sollux on the other hand would be really serious about this and you hate to admit it, but he isn’t stupid.

Terezi is probably not the impostor but something still disturbs you, you aren’t sure why. Maybe it’s because you’ve barely seen her for the past few days, what is she even up to?

What about Gamzee? The thought of him being impostor is actually entertaining. Purplebloods are known for often flipping their shit for seemingly no reason whatsoever, but you’ve been friends with him for so long and you’ve never really seen him act strange or whatever.. although, ‘strange’ could describe Gamzee’s everyday behavior.

And then there’s Dirk and Rose.

What do you even have to say about them?   
Rose is nice, you guess. Dirk is a bit cold, but he doesn’t seem to have bad intentions.

Your first guess is Sollux, but you quickly brush that idea away. It can’t be him, he’s your friend. He might’ve acted weird during the meetings, but you know for a fact that nobody can act normally in situations like these.

Before you can come up with anything else, a loud alarm rips you out of your thoughts. Your first reflex is to tense up and freeze for a second, attempting to get a grip on what’s even happening until you feel your tablet vibrate inside of your pocket. Shit, okay. You quickly fish it out and stare at your tablet, noticing a note in bright red that spells “Oxygen depleted in 30,29, 28-“

The fuck? The O2 block and the admin block are highlighted in red on your minimap and you start to head there as fast as you can, seeing the timer go down with each second that passes.

When you get in the O2 block, you’re out of breath and you notice Dirk who’s already fixing it with some.. code thing? You walk into the room to get a better look and when he finishes, it all goes back to normal. The alarms that have been destroying your ears finally shut up as Dirk turns to look at you. 

You’re staring at him, crossing your arms and saying absolutely nothing. He stays quiet aswell and now it’s just kind of.. an awkward silence.

If it wasn’t for the strange honks outside of the room distracting both of you, you’d still be staring at each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO!!!! thank you for reading uhhhhhhh idk ALSO THANKS FOR 100 HITS WOOHOOO IM REALLY HAPPY this is like my first serious fic ever thats been published I didnt expect this many pplp to read my shit so like i love yall, reminder that my grammar probably sucks because english is not my first langage and im super insecure about it .
> 
> how do you write rose..........................................................................................................


	5. something clever about clowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr OH NO

“Gamzee?” Your own voice has never sounded so confused, and damn you’ve been confused a whole lot of times in your life. The cause of your thinkpan’s distress right now— is the clown in front of you.

More specifically, the number of horns that he’s currently carrying. You don’t know how, when, or even where he found that shit, and your thinkpan can’t come up with a scenario that would make sense concerning Gamzee’s newly acquired items. Each time one falls out of his arms, a loud honk surprises you. Even Dirk looks somewhat perplexed by the purpleblood’s behavior, and damn you can’t blame him.

“‘Sup, motherfuckers.” He says out of nowhere.

“What the fuck?” This feels like an appropriate response to you, because seriously, what the fuck. 

He honks a horn in your direction instead of saying anything. You shift your weight on your other leg, arms crossed. Whatever, there isn’t even any point in trying to have an intelligent conversation with Gamzee. You’re kind of used to that after all.

“Have you seen Terezi?” 

Gamzee slightly squints his eyes at you when you say that, “Haven’t seen her all motherfuckin’ day bro. You lookin’ for her?” 

You hear some noise come from the corner of the O2 block and notice that Dirk’s finishing one of his tasks that’s probably been interrupted by the alarm. You redirect your gaze back to Gamzee and respond.

“I’m looking for her, I haven’t seen Terezi in a while, which makes me wonder,” You pause, “What the fuck is she even up to?” Your voice cracks and you kind of cringe at that, but Gamzee doesn’t seem to care about it.

The clown drops all of his horns to the floor and you jump in response to the loud noise. “Shit, sorry, bro.” He apologizes for frightening you, "Might be able to help you find the wicked sis, though..”.

“It’s fine, I’ll do it myself... Why the fuck do you have so many of those, and where did you even get this useless pile of shit?” You say, pointing at the small pile of horns on the floor.

Dirk, who finished his task walks over to the both of you, mostly to see what’s even happening. A short-lived silence settles over the three of you.

Gamzee looks at him, then at you and he shrugs. “Was just movin’ the horn pile.” 

So, is he seriously doing useless bullshit that is going to benefit no one but him, when there are many many tasks left to do? Who the fuck does he think he is?

“You have fucking tasks to do, you brain-damaged imbecile! And that’s what you’re doing when we’re literally being hunted down one by one by traitors? Useless bullshit?!” You half-yell at him. Gamzee seems to recoil at what you just said and you immediately begin to feel bad.

Dirk shifts uncomfortably next to you, “I’m going to go check on the engines.” He says, probably using that as a reason to leave this situation. You can’t really blame him. The human quickly absconds out of there, leaving you with Gamzee. He’s still standing there like he has nothing to do which unsettles you a bit.  
“Okay, uh. Do your tasks or something. I’ll go do mine..” You finished all your tasks, but you should repeat Dirk’s actions and abscond the fuck out of here. You begin to feel a bit nervous for seemingly no reason at all... Jesus, it’s not like Gamzee’s going to kill you or something.

“Thought you wanted to find Terezi?” The clown tilts his head, illustrating his confusion.

“Right,” You cross your arms, “I should probably go do that.” 

You take Gamzee’s silence as your cue to leave. Did you hurt him? Fuck, you knew that was going to happen. 

You start to walk away, pace slow, hands in your pockets, focus on your main goal: Finding Terezi. You don’t really know where to start looking, so you let your own legs choose your path. Currently headed towards the Shields block in hopes of finding the teal blooded girl, questions start plaguing your mind again. 

What if she doesn’t want to see you anymore? 

What if the reason why she’s been so distant and absent, is that she’s the impostor?

You really don’t want to think about it. You don’t have the answer to either of those hypotheses, which you really hope are false.

But you can only hope.

This spaceship’s ridiculous size and obnoxiously long hallways only provide you with more time to think about that kind of scenario, which you doubt is doing you any good. Maybe Terezi finally stopped caring about your self-loathing ass. Maybe she did find someone better, like the shades douche. Even if you’ve been really good friends with her ever since you were grubs. Even if she doesn’t seem to reciprocate your feelings like she used to.

You can’t really blame her after all-- you really consider yourself a useless stain on the spaceship’s honor. 

That reminds you of that one time, before all of this space travel bullshit even started, you told Sollux about all of that over Trollian. He did tell you to fuck off at first, but after that, he genuinely did try to help you with your romantic issues. Mostly by saying something along the lines of, ‘iif you keep beiing a 2elf loathiing piiece of 2hiit, you cant expect anyone to love you back” which in normal-people language means that you can’t expect anyone to love you back if you don’t love yourself. Whatever that inspirational garbage meant, it did spark some questions in your thinkpan for quite a while. Loving yourself sounds pointless and stupid. In all honesty, you doubt you’ll ever be able to achieve something like that. But hey, you can always hope, right?

Once you arrive at the Shields room, you realize that Kanaya’s completing one of her tasks. When she notices you, she turns and offers you a small smile before going back to messing with whatever controls she’s supposed to take care of. 

“I won’t be annoying you for long, I promise,” What a way to start, “But I was wondering if you knew where to find Terezi.” You’re surprised by how quiet your voice got near the end of the request.

“Oh, last time I saw Terezi, she was finishing her tasks in electrical. May I know why you are looking for her?” The jadeblood responds, still busy with her tasks. From what you’re seeing, you assume she’s trying to figure out something with the switch.

“I haven’t seen her in a while is why! I’m just worried, and thanks for telling me.” A wave of relief washes over you. Terezi’s fine! “See you soon?” You say. Kanaya smiles at you in response, 

“I will see you at the cafeteria if everything goes well.” You try to smile back, probably looking stupid due to your sharp teeth and slight overbite. Whatever, it’s not like Kanaya would make fun of the way you smile.

You walk out of the shields room into yet another empty hallway that’s leading you into the storage room, and to your misfortune, you aren’t alone. Vriska is getting some fuel and she seems to notice you. She smirks the way she usually does when she’s got something either clever, passive-aggressive, or both, to say but before she can say anything you quickly abscond into electrical. Terezi should be here. 

You step into the abnormally dark room, nearly tripping over wires, and look around for her. It’s really quiet. “Terezi?” 

There’s no response. You decide to turn around the corner.

What your eyes land on sickens you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UHHHHHHHHH this is very short IM SORRY thanks for reading tho


	6. Karkat actually thinks about things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WOAHHHH THIS CHAPTER IS ACTUALLY ADDNG SOMETHING REALYL IMPORTANT TO THE STORY

The body in front of you is twisted in many unnatural ways. The sickness taking over you makes your vision spin a bit, knees shaky and eyes wide with shock. This can’t be happening, no! Maybe she’s just asleep? No, that’s fucking stupid. Nobody falls asleep in electrical. What if you’re the one who’s asleep? What if you’re just having a really terrible dream? You have lots of these, so it could make sense. A hesitant pinch on your skin tells you that, no, you are in fact, not dreaming and that this is all happening.

This is real.

Your knees become shakier and they finally give up under the unbearable weight of many emotions all at once, causing your frame to sink into the floor in a way that probably looks pathetic. But you don’t care. Not when something of much greater importance’s got all of your attention.

Terezi’s dead.

You try to shake her up a bit, tightly grabbing her shoulders, but to no avail. She’s unresponsive and her body feels abnormally cold under your shaky hands. Something sharp squeezes your bloodpusher, making it hard to breathe. If you weren’t hyperventilating before, then you sure as hell are right now. Fuck.

You were too late. 

You could’ve saved her if you were faster.

With the amount of emotions flooding your chest, it’s not long until they start flowing out of your own eyes as well, betraying your already broken facade. The world around you becomes blurry and you quickly wipe those tears away, but more keep coming. A few more sobs shake up your chest before you finally attempt to regain yourself.

You hesitantly fish your tablet out with unsteady hands. You have to report the body. One more whimper gets ripped out of your throat before you press on the button that’ll make everyone on this hell-ship gather around the table and discuss who the hell could’ve even done this to her. Your vision goes blurry once again and you shut your eyes, breathing in and out. In and out. You can’t let anyone see you like this, you can’t let anyone see you like this. You feel a singular tear roll down your cheek, before finally adopting a suitable presentation. And by suitable, you mean anything that doesn’t look like a wriggler that just licked a fucking lemon or something.

You get up, your knees still weak, and take a deep breath, not feeling like you’re going to barf all over the fucking place anymore. Which is good.

You start heading towards the cafeteria. Once you arrive, you realize that everyone’s already quickly gathered around the table. All their eyes are locked on you and suddenly, you feel extremely small and vulnerable in the middle of this gigantic fucking room. The silence sounds so loud in your ears, and you, subconsciously clenching your hands into fists, realize that what they’re all waiting for is what you have to say.

“Terezi’s dead.”

The atmosphere visibly shifts, to one more tense.

“Where did you find her?” You recognize Dave’s voice, tinted with obvious concern and your sorrow has been replaced by the intense need to punch this douchebag right in the face, only temporarily though.

“I found her in electrical.” You respond, not feeling like spitting out insults at all right now. Even Dave seems somewhat surprised at your neutrality like he was expecting you to tell him something rude or whatever.

“Have you seen anyone near electrical? Perhaps, it could help us know who the murderer among us is.” Rose questions you.

“Vriska was doing her tasks in storage, that’s all.” The girl in question looks at you when she hears her own name come out of your mouth.

A silence falls on the entire crew, however, it gets broken by a certain goldblood.

“If we don’t want to lose this game, we’ll have to start voting people out of this hellhole. Unless your goal is to die or some shit, but it clearly isn’t mine.” In what world is Soliux actually trying to accomplish shit? Things must be really fucked up if he’s trying to take the lead. In some sick, deranged and twisted way, you find it almost funny. This is how low all of you have gotten, especially you. 

“I think Sollux does have a point. But in my opinion, proceeding carefully would be for the best.” Kanaya adds to the conversation. 

“It would be as easy as you make it sound if we had, I don’t know, actual clues? Don’t you know how utterly shitty it would be to kill an innocent?” You respond to Sollux.

“KK, don’t act like no one here has been acting suspicious.” He starts. Before you can answer, he continues, “We can’t do nothing and expect the impostors to magically disappear.”

Well. He’s got a point.

Everyone stays quiet. A quick look at the smaller crowd of people all around the table tells you that you aren’t the only one who doesn’t really know what to say to that. Sollux seems to take it as an invitation to continue.

“Dirk’s suspicious. He’s always quiet and I barely see him.” 

This is a really shitty argument against him. The human in question tenses up a bit at this remark. You decide to take his defense.

“Dirk’s fine, you ignorant asswad. He’s literally the one who fixed shit in the O2 block!” 

“I don’t see why you would consider me suspicious in particular when there are people who are much quieter. ” The human male sounds strangely calm when he says that, almost challenging in a way. If you were him you’d probably be flipping your shit by now.

“What about Gamzee?” Kanaya’s the one throwing out accusations, this time.

“Gamzee?” You say out loud, kind of lost. What about him?

“I don’t think it’s Gamzee, there are--” Rose says before she quickly gets interrupted by Vriska, “I’m voting for Dirk.”

“But we’ve got no proof of him being guilty at all, you fucking shitbag! What if he’s innocent? You’re going to kill someone who did nothing wrong and is, in fact, innocent and it’ll all be your fucking fault! Just because some overgrown wriggler couldn’t make the difference between an obviously innocent person and the impostor?!” You’re starting to get a bit angry. 

Dirk’s also talking, probably defending himself but you can barely hear him over your voice and everyone else’s. 

Several people are speaking all at once, like a pack of disorganized, idiotic barkbeasts and the meeting slowly starts degrading into loud chaos. 

It all comes to an end when the voting phase begins, everything turning into a sudden silence, similar to the one when you entered the room.

Everyone else’s quietly hitting a single button on their tablets, so decisively, like they know who really is the impostor when you know damn well they don’t. Honestly, you have no clue who to vote for. You end up skipping it and realize that you’re the only one who skipped the vote, as everyone else has voted for someone.

With horror, you realize that Dirk’s got the most votes. You literally said he was innocent, he fixed the O2 leak! Nobody listened to you, because they were too fucking stubborn to try listening to you! When he realizes that, you notice a visible twitch in his expression that once was unreadable. For a split second, he looks at you in the eyes. Even though he’s got the shitty pointy shades on, you can kind of when your eyes meet before he looks away in defeat.

Fuck.

\---------------

It’s time to sleep again, and as expected, sleep is still as difficult to achieve as it usually is. The soft, rhythmic snoring that’s coming from the rest of the sleeping block tells you that everyone else except you has managed to fall asleep. You climb down the ladder and look at the now completely empty bed which used to be Dirk’s, making you feel kind of strange. You turn around and on your way out of the block to try and ignore that, you notice another empty bed which must be Terezi’s. You speed up so that you’re out into the hallway. 

A quick look at your tablet tells you that it’s 04:57 AM. The tasks you need to get done today have already been refreshed and if you can’t sleep, you can at least try to be useful.

On your way to admin, you start to feel even worse about yourself. Not only could you have saved Terezi, but you could’ve also convinced everyone else to not kill Dirk if you were a little more insistent on it, but oh no, you had to be a fucking wriggler about it. You weren’t even good friends with Dirk, but his death is still entirely your fault. He was innocent! And when everyone found out, they acted surprised like they had no fucking clue, even though you literally had proof of him being innocent, for fuck’s sake! How can they be this stupid? Why did they all mindlessly follow Sollux’s accusation? Even the goldblood was suspicious, but they were all too blind to see that.

Terezi’s an entirely different topic but it’s also taking up a lot of room inside of your overworked thinkpan. If you were faster, maybe you could’ve prevented her from dying! And… fuck, you’re going to miss her. The fact that she’s never, ever going to come back and that you’ll never see or hear her voice again hits you hard. Too hard. You feel some tears well up in your eyes, but you wipe those away. You won’t cry over her a second time. She made the fact that she wasn’t into you obvious! But you wouldn’t have minded her being your friend at all. You just wanted to ask her what you did wrong for her to avoid you like that. 

But you can’t do that anymore.

And you can’t get over her easily either. She’s been a very good friend for as long as you can remember, so why did she start acting distant all of a sudden? Is it because of Dave? Fuck, you’re pretty sure it is. He’s the reason why she finally moved on. And now she’s dead. 

You are so alone.

When you finally get in the admin block, you quickly fish your card out of your pocket and swipe it across the scan-thing. 

Too fast? What is this bullshit? You swipe again, this time it tells you that it’s too slow. God. Okay, let’s try again. You swipe it at what you hope is the right speed… and it doesn’t work. Fuck. Whoever made this useless piece of shit scanner would probably be laughing at your distress right now. 

You punch the scanner. Kind of like the coffee machine actually, except if you break it, Dirk won’t be there to repair it this time. If anything, the only real result coming from this stupid action might just be your fist hurting more than it usually does. Great job, idiot.

You swipe your card again, and you don’t know what kind of miraculous god granted you success in this task but it actually works. See, punching machines when they don’t work actually works sometimes! Fuck other bullshit people say about being “soft and gentle with advanced pieces of technology”. They can lick your bulge for all you care about.

The next task on the list is to download shit from the cafeteria with your tablet and upload it in comms. You think you can do that, it doesn’t sound too hard. You quickly head back into the cafeteria and grab a cup of coffee on the way there before getting back on your current goal: finish all of those fucking tasks. You bring your tablet up to the screen and plug in some USB cable in it, transferring the needed files into your device. It’s…significantly slower than you expected it to be. What the fuck are you even downloading? You could be downloading porn for all you know. Whatever, it’s not like knowing what the hell you’re even doing is something you’re good at. 

Once the download is over, you trot your way into the communication block to upload the files. On your way there, you think about Terezi but this time… there’s a bit of relief mixed into it. This sickens you. 

It’s not long until you’re done with that certain task, though before finishing the rest, you get some time to think about things.

Why was Sollux acting like that all of a sudden? The cynical asshole usually likes staying in his comfort zone and never confronts himself to arguments he knows he might lose because he’s a fucking wriggler, so why did he do just that? This makes you a bit skeptical towards your friend’s so-called ‘innocence’ and it all starts to make sense. 

You also barely see him doing anything. Tasks, repairing stuff, or whatever. He’s been literally invisible to you this whole time, how can you explain that?

It clicks.

Sollux is the impostor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOOOD MOOORNING TO EVERYONE WHO KNEW SOLLUX WAS SUS ❤💞.... and gm to everyone else I guess😒😒😒😒


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uhh yeah , i m super damn tired so expect a few grammar mistakes here n there. also its kinda short I'm sorry

Plenty of things have happened since all of this began. “Plenty of things” almost sounds like an understatement, actually, but you somehow lack a better phrase to describe this gigantic shitshow. It’s definitely a life-changing experience, and the assumption alone that every damned person on this spaceship has at least changed a little bit since the beginning seems reasonable. Seriously, you can’t expect anyone to stay the exact same, mentally at least, when a crushing amount of tasks and the constant risk of being killed by who you consider friends is what they face on a daily basis. From your experience, the biggest consequences from this entire situation are probably the fact that your will to live has somehow managed to reach an even lower point than back on Alternia, which, in itself, would’ve sounded completely impossible to you a few weeks ago, before “this” began. 

Another important aspect of your life is your self-loathing. You aren’t really surprised by the fact that it’s still as present as it usually is, as it’s literally a part of yourself. Would you really be Karkat Vantas without your unbearable self-hate? You really doubt it. But in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

The events that have all happened here have understandably degraded your mental health into something completely unrecognizable, however, you sincerely doubt you’re the only one with a completely wrecked sense of safety and overall self-image. Another topic concerning all the pressure the crew’s been under you’d like to address in your inner monologue is the abundance of tasks. You aren’t going to lie here, you’re not a huge fan of those. Scratch that, you straight-up hate those. The time lost in all of those pointlessly long and ridiculously simple -- but exhausting -- tasks could be used in a much more useful and important way, like figuring out who the hell the impostors are! Not only are they a complete waste of time, but they’re also tiring. Whoever built this spaceship is an actual moron, there is no doubt in that because for the love of the Mother Grub, those goddamn wires sure break a whole lot! Almost like it was programmed to break. Almost like someone made the spaceship in need of constant repairing on purpose. 

That sounds completely counterproductive and is very unlikely.

You’ve finished your tasks early in the morning, leaving you to yourself. Instead of bathing in your own neurotic tendencies, you’ll be checking on everyone. After all, how else are you going to figure out who the murderers are? 

Everything that’s happened so far brought you to this moment. Honestly, you aren’t thrilled about it either. But you’ve learned to put your personal conflicts aside for the greater good of the majority and are going to make sure the man in front of you’s doing his tasks. Only an impostor would not do their tasks. 

“Dude, stop looking at me like that. It’s fucking creepy. See? I’m doing my tasks, Karkat. Karkat.” Dave calls your name and you realize that you’ve kind of been zoning the fuck out. As usual, you can’t really pinpoint his emotions as they constantly look on some level of Strider-type neutral. “Hello, Earth to Karkat? Look at me putting those wires together with my manly hands. Look at those long, smooth Alpha Male fingers. Those wires are literally begging for it man, they’re just so goddamn--” 

“God, are you ever going to shut your pestilent load gaper shitspitting hole up?! You’re an embarrassment.” 

“You’re the one who insisted on watching me do my tasks, buddy. You signed up for this, no refunds.”

You already regret this “plan”, but is there anything else to do? 

“You’re one of the most suspicious bulgesuckers on this hellship and I just wanted to make sure you weren’t up to some suspicious fucking business! Can I not do that anymore?” 

Dave pauses and looks at you. You aren’t even sure if his eyes are actually on you due to the shades obscuring half of his face, but the slight inclination of his head does hint at the fact that he is looking at you. “I’m suspicious to you?” 

“Kind of.” You’re being honest. 

For a second, you swear you could see him frowning at you, but he seems to go back to his neutral, straight-faced attitude.

“If I really was the impostor, don’t you think I would’ve killed you when I had the chance? I mean, dude, look, if I was the impostor, now keep in mind this is a complete, one hundred percent hypothetical situation, you would’ve been my first victim-- not that I hate you or anything, you know, no offense and all of that, but you just kind of look like an easy target. Oh shit, maybe I shouldn’t have said that--” You can feel the pure stupidity of the literal word-vomit he’s spitting in your way rot your already damaged thinkpan. “-- But you’ve gotta think like the impostors to defend yourself against them, you know the saying, ‘knowing your enemy is half the battle’ or whatever the fuck? Yeah, what I’m saying, those are just basic warfare tactics, bro.” 

You’re concerned. Where did he even learn all of that shit? It really looks like he’s been doing it for ages. 

“Oh my god, you insufferable prick. I literally get it! You don’t have to bring up the literal dumbest shit I’ve ever had the misery to hear in my entire pathetic life, holy shit!”

“Sorry, dude.” You know that his excuses don’t even have one bit of sincerity in it. The douchebag in front of you’s got his hands smugly shoved in his pockets, trying to give off ‘relaxed’ and ‘cool’ vibes but you’re not falling for that. You can see right through his coolkid facade, and he’s aware of that.

“I wasn’t calling you suspicious, you literal shit-for-brains! I was just going to make sure, you know, aren’t the impostor?” You answer.

“Why me specifically, though?”

“Have I not made the fact that I don’t trust your sorry ass obvious enough already? Or do you want me to fucking repeat myself?” 

“I don’t care if you trust me or not, I could literally not give fewer shits, bro. The shit counter literally broke from how little shits I give about how much you trust me—“ 

“Oh, so you wouldn’t give any shits about me getting you killed through the votes because one, you’re acting like a gigantic dickhead that honestly really needs to learn the meaning of ‘shutting up’ and two, you’re suspicious as fuck, and three, you’re the reason why I didn’t get to spend more time with Terezi before she died?!” 

Shit. You didn’t mean to say that.

Dave visibly winces at that and you think you might’ve gone a bit too far, but it needed to be said. He’s the reason why one of the people you trusted the most was avoiding you and maybe, maybe she would still be alive if he wasn’t such a dickhead. Maybe he’s the one who killed her.

“Are you blaming your personal problems on me?” He questions you, an eyebrow raised.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, you grubshitting coward.”

Dave seems to understand what you’re referring to. 

“Dude, it’s not my fault she preferred me.” 

You would have hit him right in his shit-eating face right now, but you’ve learned your lesson from last time. You’re kind of at a loss for words. But, no matter how speechless he left you, you try to at least say something to that.

“What the fuck do you mean, it’s not your fault? Are you aware of how bafflingly stupid that sounds?!”

“Other people aren’t always the source of your problems. Maybe you’re just an asshole.”

You try to not recoil at that, come on, you’re better than this. It’s not like some human scumbag’s going to be the death of your honor.

You storm out of the electrical block and run past Rose, who seems somewhat confused. He’s right. It’s not his fault. 

Then who’s fault is it?

—————————

The lack of sleep is starting to heavily impact you, and it’s only the evening. You notice people already eating in the cafeteria and decide to grab yourself some grubloaf before heading over to the main table. Pretty much everybody else’s already sitting there, chatting about random crap you probably would not care about. But you guess the company and background noise is still nice, that is until you hear Kanaya call your name.

“Have you had any sleep, Karkat?” There’s some concern in her voice and she probably noticed how distracted and shitty you currently look.

“Yes. I did.” You lie. 

“That is good to hear.” She smiles at you. You notice that her lipstick looks a bit smudged.

“Why the fuck are you asking anyway?”

“We are all worried about you.”

Now you know that’s a lie. Maybe her and possibly Rose care about your physical and mental health, but you don’t think it actually matters to anyone else. Even Gamzee, he’s just too stupid for that. And you don’t trust Sollux.

You finish your meal in only a few bites and head back to the sleeping block without a word, climb up the bed ladder, and collapse face-first right on top of those warm, welcoming blankets. You’re so tired and exhausted from all of this, but hey, at least you can rest for a bit now. 

A relieved groan escapes your mouth and you roll on your side, curling up under the comforting fabric, settling into a more comfortable position. You feel warm and safe, something that you barely experience nowadays. You bury yourself a little more under the thick blankets and start to drift off, understandably tired from not sleeping the day before.

You slowly fall asleep to footsteps entering the respiteblock, not even bothering to look at who just entered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, also, (this has nothing to do with the fanfiction) hiveswap act 2 november!!! im super hyped about it


	8. Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UMM this is kinda short im sorry

For once in your entire life, you feel safe. Truly safe. Like there’s not one thing in this entire cruel world to worry about, not even the impostors or your friends’ safety. Your sleep feels empty and fulfilling at the same time, hell, you’ve never felt so well-rested in your entire life. Every single bit of anger and frustration that has been consuming you from inside for so many sweeps has finally disappeared with no trace, like a puddle of water evaporating under the Alternian sun. The guilt that’s been haunting you is all gone, you don’t feel bad about Terezi or Dirk anymore. Which, in itself, is a massive relief for you. You don’t really know where you are right now— or when, it’s like space and time are distorted and so are your emotions and opinions on things.

That is until you get woken up by your alarm. 

Fuck.

You manage to smash your tablet in a way that makes it stop the unbearable ringing and roll over, falling back asleep. You’re too tired to function properly and sleep is definitely what your body craves right now. Fuck them tasks. 

Unlike a few hours ago, your sleeping is straight-up dreamless. Well, that’s better than the nightmares you usually have at least. Can’t really complain.

———————

When you wake up, you realize that you might’ve slept a bit too much because of how lazy and tired you were and let out an annoyed groan, rolling on your side. You’ve never wanted to escape a situation this much before. 

Fuuuuck.

A quick look at your tablet tells you that it’s 11 AM and the list of tasks to get done today isn’t too long, but Mother Grub is it going to be fucking annoying. 

You realize that nobody else is in the respite block, so you’re basically the last one to wake up which only makes it worse. Sitting up, you stretch your arms and yawn, ruffling your own hair so that it doesn’t look too terrible and you climb down the ladder. 

As you’ve expected, all the padded sleeping platforms are empty. Well, at least, people bothered to wake up this morning. It would be a shame if the entire crew was full of lazy shitfaces like you. Your movements are a bit clumsy mostly due to the fact that you’re still, after sleeping for +10 hours, somehow sleepy as fuck, and in all honesty, you doubt that’s anywhere close to being normal.

Keeping your eyes open is difficult and the dim lighting of the room hurts them even more. You suck it up and keep going with your day, there’s no point in complaining in your usual inner monologues, it won’t change shit. After walking out of the block, you decide to head towards the cafeteria for your daily caffeinated drink. 

When you enter the large room, you notice Rose standing right in front of the coffee machine, a perplexed look on her face. You get a bit closer and the blond-haired girl turns to look in your direction. She looks a bit surprised by your presence but speaks first nonetheless.

“Greetings, Karkat. What brings you here on this beautiful day?” Her usual sarcastic tone is here, though, she smiles at you.

“Coffee.” You respond, truthfully. No lies here, coffee is the only thing your body desires right now.

“I think we might be experiencing kind of… a problem with the coffee machine.” She gracefully moves aside, letting you look at the coffee machine. For fuck’s sake, did it break again?

“What, is it broken or some shit?”

“I am afraid it is, and I have been doing my absolute best to try and fix it.”

“Please, tell me that you’re joking. I swear to whatever sadistic gods exist up here, if this cheap piece of actual shit broke again I am literally throwing myself off of this hellship.”

“For now, I’m assuming we will have to work without coffee. That is, until it gets repaired.” She says.

“The only person who was able to fix this literal piece of garbage was Dirk and our thinkpan damaged crew fucking killed him.” There’s a bit of a harsh tone in your words, but it’s the truth. It seems Rose wasn’t expecting that either and her mouth twitches down a bit.

“I understand your frustration, Karkat.” She pauses for a second, possibly looking for better words, “but we can’t always save everyone from death.”

“You’re completely wrong! If you guys weren’t being a bunch of fucking morons, Dirk would’ve never died. I could’ve prevented him from dying if you listened to me, is it too hard for your underdeveloped shit-for-brains self to even consider the idea of his death being even remotely your fault? You don’t have any excuses!” You snarl back at her, feeling a twitch of guilt in your chest. She recoils a bit at that, however, keeps her neutral expression.

“You are right, but I never tried to excuse it. I’m completely aware of the fact that it is partially my fault as I voted for him, but perhaps, instead of yelling at your crewmates, working with them to find the actual impostors would be a better outcome? Repeating this situation would be dramatic, don’t you think?” She slyly smiles at you, and fuck, she’s right.

You cross your arms and look away, “I guess you’re somewhat right, but that’s because you are literally the only person in this idiotic crew who’s even close to being smart.”

“That is very flattering. I’m afraid I must leave now, I have plenty of tasks to complete today. Farewell, Karkat.” 

“Yeah, okay. Me too.”

She smiles at you and begins to walk away, and you’re once again, alone in the cafeteria.

A last look at the coffee machine tells you that it’ll probably be a while until you’ll ever get to drink some again. With a sigh, you leave the cafeteria and start walking towards the shields block. You barely focus on your tasks, instead, ruminating on what could happen and who the impostors are. You’ve done that plenty of times already and it keeps becoming more and more pointless.

Sollux is the impostor, but what are you going to do with this information? What proofs do you even have? He’s been your ‘best friend’ since you two were tiny grubs. Now, you won’t deny the fact that he felt somewhat off since the beginning of this journey. But he’s still your friend. He did get Dirk killed, but that’s what he’s literally supposed to do, as his only goal is to betray all of you. This makes you sick.

You don’t want to kill Sollux. You don’t want to kill anyone.

You’re just scared and want everything to be fine.

\-----------------

You’re in the middle of doing your tasks when a loud alarm -- Meeting ? -- rips you out of your depressing thoughts. 

Your tablet displays the usual “EMERGENCY MEETING” caption and with a muffled groan, you quickly trot back into the cafeteria. You notice Gamzee and Vriska already there, so you sit next to the purpleblood, waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive.

Once everyone’s here, you notice that the atmosphere is still as tense as it usually is during meetings. The first person to speak is Vriska.

“Kanaya’s dead. I found her in a hallway, next to security.”

Oh. Oh god, not her.

“Was anyone near security?” You ask.

The ceruleanblood shakes her head. You scan the crowd of people in front of you, it keeps getting smaller with each meeting, and that fact makes you feel sick. You don’t want more people to die. You really don’t.

Everyone stays silent. Dave looks unfazed, Gamzee is… well, Gamzee, Rose looks like she’s about to cry but is trying to hide it, Vriska seems uninterested and Sollux is intently staring at Vriska. None of you talk, and the silence is driving you to madness. You state your opinion, wanting to make actual stuff happen.

“I think we have to eject Sollux.”

The crew looks at you with mixed emotions -- some being surprise, others being skepticism and confusion. 

“Why are you saying that?” The goldblood asks, his voice anxious.

“Do you want to know why the fuck I’m saying that?” You growl, “It’s because ever since this shitshow began, you’ve been acting like a gigantic douche. You got Dirk killed, who, had done absolutely no-fucking-thing wrong and you think you can get away with that? Well let me tell you, you’re wrong. I’ve never seen you complete any tasks.”

You feel bad when you notice the way Sollux’s mouth twitches down.

“Are you sure that he’s an impostor? He might just be innocent, we never know.” Dave says.

“No! He is not innocent, and I am one hundred percent sure. You know what? If he turns out to be an innocent, you can vote me out. I don’t fucking care!” Now that’s a bit risky.

“I think we should listen to Karkat, I have not seen Sollux doing much either.” Rose adds with an unusually quiet voice.

“You guys are a bunch of fucking idiots. You know what? Go ahead and kill me, I don’t care.” Sollux crosses his arms, face tinted with defeat.

The votes are quick and sharp. They’re all on Sollux. A last glance at his face tells you that he’s never looked so hopeless before. Guilt shoots through your chest like an arrow when you realize that you’re the reason why your best friend, impostor or not, is going to die.

You are so sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE I AHVE TO UPDATE RHIS SHIT ON PHONE. because ao3 isntwworking on my laptop anymore for some reason? honestly idk either fuck this shit anyway the formatting might be wack af but that’s because I had to publish this chapter on a phone that freezes every 4 seconds and barely works. 
> 
> thank you for reading as always!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nghgghh this is short im sorry also i wrote this late at night so the grammar is probably gonna suck

You’re bad at moral dilemmas, it’s probably the truest thing you know about yourself. So when you get confronted with problems such as getting your best friend killed for the greater good of the crew or letting him live and kill you all one by one, the choice seems obvious to you but it still somehow feels wrong.

You really, really don’t want to ruminate on it for too long, as it’s never done you any good. After Sollux got ejected, you continued your tasks like nothing had happened and finished them pretty late. You don’t eat anything other than a small piece of human bread and on your walk to the respite block, you notice Rose. Oh god.

You did notice how quickly she and Kanaya became close, and you can’t help but feel that they had more potential than a simple friendship. You don’t want to ask her what was going on between the two of them, as it would be grossly tactless, especially after Kanaya’s death.

Even if they were just friends and nothing more, you’re assuming it still sucks to lose someone like that. She seems to be reading some book she brought with her on the spaceship, and fuck, now you wish you took your husktop and DVDs with you. It’s a bit early for sleep so you’re just laying on your back, right on top of the bed, while thinking about random stuff. Memories of Alternia and your lusus feel blurry, but they still make you happy and somewhat fill you with nostalgia. You guess it’s the same thing for both humans and trolls, you all miss your home.

Who’s even left? There’s Vriska, Gamzee, You, Rose, Dave and… is that it?

This is half of the crew. Half of you are dead, the other half are alive… holy shit, you never really thought about it. That’s worrying.

You roll on your side, staring at the wall in front of you. Who are the impostors?

You don’t know. Everyone is somewhat suspicious to you except, well, you. Maybe Rose, but she’s the only one who really seems innocent in this. Also Gamzee, the dude is literally harmless and there’s no way he’d ever be able to kill someone. Dave’s an asshole, and so is Vriska. 

You really don’t know. You aren’t sure you want to know, either. One of them wants to kill you, and that’s all you really need to know.

The only good thing about human respite platforms is the fact that they come with blankets. You guess they’re… nice? You definitely enjoy the warmth and comfort that comes with having one wrapped around you. And with what’s been happening, comfort is always welcome, even if it’s coming from the thick fabric that’s currently keeping you warm. You aren’t really sleepy, just kind of bored. You sit up, maybe you can talk to Gamzee or something, even if it usually ends up with you losing at least 20 IQ points just from the sheer stupidity of the literal word vomit he spits out whenever he’s with you. 

You sit up and look around the block to see if the purpleblood’s anywhere. And, well, no, he isn’t here. The two only people in your block are Rose and Dave. You assume he came in when you were overthinking. You’re bored and are going to do anything for something to happen, so you sit up and look down on the peasants, -- you mean crewmates, Dave in particular, who is sitting on Dirk’s bed below you. You don’t even think he saw you, or maybe he just assumed you were asleep. You’re grateful you got the top bed.

“Hey, asshat.” You say, looking down.

The human looks up at you. “What?”

“Are you the impostor?” You ask.

He snorts and for a small second, he smirks right back at you. Smug bitch.

“Yeah, I’m totally the impostor. How could you tell? Is your intellect so fucking massive you just immediately guessed?”

“Shut up. I was just asking a genuine question.” You roll your eyes. “Have you seen Gamzee?” 

“Nope.” His voice is blank again, and he refocuses his attention on whatever the hell he’s even doing on his tablet. Whatever. Gamzee’s probably going to come back soon anyway. You wonder what he’s even doing. Does he have any clue of what he’s doing? You swear to fucking god, he’s like a grub that constantly needs to be monitored. 

You spend more time laying flat on your back, humming Alternian tunes. Shit, you didn’t even download any music from there. 

The song you’re quietly humming at the moment is actually about how amazing and respected Her Imperial Condescension is. To anyone who grew up as a lowblood, or even midblood on Alternia, this sounds like absolute bullshit mostly because it is. The Condesce is a bitch and if no one dared to say it out loud, everyone thought it. 

The only reason why you like a song about such a tyrannical and hostile leader that wants all trolls of your blood dead is that it’s got a nice flow and beat.

You hear footsteps, signaling the arrival of one or more people in the respite block, it’s probably time to sleep anyway. You’ll talk to Gamzee later.

Settling into a more comfortable position, you shut your eyes and fall asleep surprisingly quickly.

\----------------

Once again, you’re in the hallways. The space you’re in feels light and the heavy atmosphere that started haunting this place since the crew got smaller has been replaced by calm, almost relaxing vibes.

This doesn’t even feel like The Skeld, but it somehow does. The lights don’t flicker, the wires aren’t scattered everywhere on the ground and it’s silent.

You walk around, confused.

The engines are full of fuel, which is a rare sight. 

The garbage is emptied.

The data in admin has already been uploaded.

The comms are not sabotaged.

What?

After exploring this place for a while, you decide to head to the cafeteria and… hey, is that Roxy? And there’s also Kanaya, Dirk and Sollux! And Terezi. They seem to be chatting about something, wait, aren’t they supposed to be dead? 

Are you dead?

You decide to go and take a closer look, but before you can do any of that, a loud unbearable noise fills your ears and you startle awake.

Fuck. 

Well, that was a dream.

God your head hurts.

You make your tablet shut the fuck up and sit up, rubbing your eyes and groaning because, seriously, fuck this place.

A glance at your tablet and now you’re aware of the fact that you have way too many tasks to complete today.

You aren’t ready for that. At all.

You waste no time and nearly trip down the ladder on your way out. 

\--------------------------------

Red wires go with the red receptor, blue goes with blue, pink goes with pink, when the fuck is this going to end? This stuff is so easy and boring even a wriggler could do that shit with ease, what the fuck. This is literally insulting your intelligence.

Red goes with red.

Pink goes with pink.

A few more wires later, you decide to take a small break. You sit against the wall in electrical, letting out a relieved sigh. Your stomach growls, maybe you should grab a snack or something, but again, you’ve got to finish a few more tasks before you’re done today. One of them is going to the other side of the ship to download useless bullshit, then go all the way to the other side only to upload the useless bullshit, and the other one is just going to exhaust you. Refueling the engines is a bitch.

You’re so alone.

…

Maybe you should begin to complete the tasks you’ve been assigned, they won’t disappear on their own. You use all of your remaining energy to get up and start heading to uh, where do you have to go again?

Oh, yeah. The cafeteria. Right.

On your walk there, you don’t really think much. You’re just tired and hungry, and you plan on grabbing a snack on your way there. The food you have on The Skeld fucking sucks and the only thing that’s not completely terrible here is human food, but except bread, you are never putting such blasphemous matter in your mouth. No way. A loud bang makes you jump, followed by a creaking noise.

What was that?

You frantically look all around yourself, realizing that you’re stuck in a hallway. In the corner of your eye, you notice something dark move. It’s a shadow of something, and fuck, you barely got time to see it, but did it head into the fucking vent? Holy shit. 

You hurry the fuck out of here and start to run into the cafeteria, you don’t even know who that was! Fuck. You should’ve been more focused. Your bloodpusher is beating way too fast right now.

When you finally get into the cafeteria, you grab a grub bar and walk over to the servers. You plug in the USB cable from the screen and begin to download files with weird names and stand there, waiting.

\-----------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading it is currently 01:36am and I have school tomorrow goodnight


	10. UNO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is perhaps a more lighthearted and carefree chapter as a treat. yall need a break from all the dying

Downloads? Uploaded.

Engines? Refueled.

Tasks? Completed.

Your idiotic grubass forgot to bring entertainment items on The Skeld, so it leaves you with nothing else to do except hating yourself, and you considered doing it for a bit but today seems to be your lucky day. Dave said he brought some obscure human card game to occupy the boring nights on The Skeld, which is probably the only good idea the asshole’s ever had. He managed to gather everyone in the cafeteria, even Gamzee. You’re sitting right next to him and honestly, the game is probably going to be shitty and boring but at least it gives you something to do.

Once Dave finishes explaining the rules, he gives everyone at the table seven cards. The rules are fairly simple. Each card has a color and a number on it, and if the previously picked card has either of those in common you can get rid of it on the pile. The goal is to get rid of all your cards, which doesn’t make much sense but you know what? This doesn’t sound too bad. 

There’s one thing you aren’t sure you understand, it’s that you need to shout “UNO” when you only have one card left which makes no sense? Whoever made those rules up has probably permanent brain damage from ever thinking up such stupid concepts, but that’s on them.

Everyone seems to have understood the rules, except Gamzee, to nobody’s surprise. He doesn’t understand much, so you’ll help on his turns. Which is technically cheating, but how else is Gamzee going to participate? 

Dave’s turn is first. He looks through his cards and eventually throws a green one with a six (or is it a nine?) on the pile, stoic. It’s Rose’s turn and she puts down a yellow card with the same confusing number and turns to you. Okay, you take that as your turn.

You look through your cards and fish out a yellow with a two on it and triumphantly throw it on the table, nearly knocking everything else off. Hell yes, you know how to play.

It’s Gamzee’s turn, and it turns out he doesn’t have any matching cards. The purpleblood picks one more card from the other pile and it’s Vriska’s turn, and she wears a worryingly sharp smirk. 

Dave just got +4’ed. Ouch.

It kind of goes on for a while. You never thought a card game could be so infuriating before but here you are, figuratively shitting your insides out of pure, unfiltered rage. Dave refers to it as the ‘Gamer Rage’ and you aren’t exactly sure of what that even means. Vriska comes out as the winner, but with her overpowered luck, it was fairly easy to predict. 

You all play a few more rounds, and you haven’t even won once. Fuck this game. This is stupid.

It’s getting late and the crew seems rather tired, so you all head back into the respite block. It’s much chattier than usual, mostly to your displeasure as you’re trying to sleep. 

It’s mostly just the two biggest asshats on this ship, Dave and Vriska who are having an obnoxiously long conversation about whatever the fuck. 

“Can you all shut the fuck up?” You groan.

You hear Vriska laugh. “What, are you actually sleeping, Karkat?” 

“Yeah, because I’m tired as fuck! If you’re going to talk about how much you love Strider’s bulge and prevent me from getting some sleep, you might as well do it in the fucking cafeteria.” You respond.

“What the hell is a bulge?” Dave asks.

“Exactly what it sounds like.” You spit out.

You hear Rose snicker from the corner of the block.

“Come on, Karkat, don’t be such a killjoy.” You can practically hear Vriska’s smirk when she says that.

“I’ll be a killjoy if you don’t stop being an annoying fucking prick.” 

You hear another muffled laugh, and you guess no one’s planning on sleeping anyway. You sit up, cheeks flushing from embarrassment, and look down. You grip the edge of the bed to not fall off and break your neck.

“Where’s Gamzee?” You ask.

“Right here, motherfucker.” His voice is still as sleepy and slow as it usually is, somehow bringing you comfort through its familiarity. You climb down the ladder and decide to go and sit right next to him, fault of not having anything better to do.

The background noise mostly consists of Dave and Vriska talking and Rose flipping through the pages of her book. You turn towards Gamzee, opening your mouth to say something.

“Who do you think the impostor here is?”

“Ain’t got no motherfuckin’ time to worry ‘bout all of that bullshit, brother.” He grins, wrapping a lazy arm around you. Why were you expecting an intelligent answer, again?

“You should worry about that shit, you lazy pile of flesh. What if the impostor kills me? Or you?” You keep your voice low.

“Ain’t gonna happen, Karbro. Just pray for those miracles--”

You interrupt him. “I swear on the fucking mother grub’s entire bloodline, if you mention miracles again I will kill everyone here then myself.” The volume of your voice gets a bit out of hand and you’re pretty sure everyone here heard you. Oops.

“Woah, Karkat, that’s kinda sus.” You hear Dave’s annoying voice speak from the other corner of the small block, much to your displeasure. 

You roll your eyes at that stunningly stupid statement and don’t even bother to answer the Shitshades, instead, turning back to Gamzee, you lean against the wall as he gently pats your back.

You two exchange a few more words while the rest of the crew chats for a bit before you all decide to sleep. Maybe they aren’t all so bad, after all.

\----------------------------

You wake up at around 5 AM for seemingly no fucking reason at all, mixed with a deafening headache. Fuck, you would die for some coffee right now. 

Going back to sleep seems nearly impossible, and when you climb down the ladder, you realize that Dave’s bed is empty. Hmmm. Suspicious.

You keep that fact to yourself and quietly walk out of the respiteblock, looking at your tablet. You don’t have many tasks to get done today, definitely to your relief. Your headache would make it much worse for you to do anything complex right now.

Your footsteps create some background noise, which is always welcome to your ears. Silence has quickly become quite possibly one of the most threatening things you can face on the spaceship. It makes you feel wrong and small in all of the worst ways.

Walk, walk, walk and walk in the grey, grey and dull hallways. This place has completely lost its charm, but you aren’t even sure if it had any to begin with. 

You take your time to do your tasks. It takes a few hours, and by the time you’re finished with them, your pounding headache is almost gone. Right now, it’s about 10 AM, you assume everyone should be awake by now. They’ll probably all be busy with tasks anyway, so you’re kind of on your own right now. This is boring you out of your mind.

A sudden change in lightning makes you jump. The dim lights flicker. They flicker once more until it all goes completely black, swallowing you in a fog of complete darkness. You’re immediately flooded with questions and an understandable wave of fear and possible confusion washes over you when faced with this somewhat disturbing problem.

The fucking lights.

You’re tense and scared but you aren’t going to shit your pants quite yet, instead, opting for the more effective and logical option of grabbing your flashlight out of your pocket and lighting everything around you up so that you have an actual clue of where the fuck you’re going.

Part of you wants to run away and hide somewhere safe. No one would see you die in this darkness. No one would save you.

The other part of you tells you to stop being such a wriggler and man the fuck up.

With a deep breath, you start heading towards the electrical block. It’s really far away and you nearly trip over the stray wires that are laying on the metal ground a few times, however, you manage to not fall facefirst into the floor.

You freeze when you hear footsteps behind you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!! it means a lot to me :). I hope you have a great day


	11. aw shucks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! sorry for the lack of updates u_u. i had exams to deal with and I still have a shitton of those in december so i dunno if i’ll be able to update much! Hopefully i’ll still have some time with school to work on this fic, so don’t expect updates as regularly as usual. also the chapter is pretty short, sorry

You jump slightly at the suspiciously close echo, turning in an attempt to see who just sneaked up on you. It takes you a few seconds to realize that it’s just Vriska and Rose. That’s not too bad, you assume it’s always better to have company during a light outage. At least they aren’t trying to kill you.

“Are you two going to fix this?” You ask.

“We are on our way to do that. I would suggest staying with us for the time being.” Rose responds, continuing her path down the hallway, followed by Vriska.

You hesitate a bit but come to the conclusion that she has a point and you decide to not be a stubborn piece of shit about it, hurrying up on your way over to them. Staying together sounds like a strategy that’s actually somewhat decent! For once, the crew isn’t acting like a brainless pile of trash. 

After a bit of silent walking, you three enter the electrical block and you look around, locating the compartment that fucked up.

“It’s this one.” You point at it, and it’s clearly been sabotaged. Some wires have been ruptured and have been left scattered all over the grey the floor. 

“What kind of mess is that?” Vriska says, kneeling downwards to take a look at the ‘mess’ and handles the wires, examining them with a curious eye.

“Karkat, are you able to guard the entrance while we fix the machine?” Rose requests.

“I can do that.” You respond, kind of happy you aren’t going to have to deal with the panfrying bullshit that is repairing wires. It’s hard to see in the dark and you nearly trip over a stray cable, making you look stupid. You hear a giggle and consequently, decide to forget that ever happened.

You keep an eye on the hallway outside of the block, listening to the background noise which mostly consists of Rose and Vriska messing with the switches and wires. You cross your arms and nervously tap your foot on the metallic and hard floor. 

It’s not like anything bad is going to happen.

Right?

———————-

Once the lights have been fixed, instant relief floods through you. It’s finally over and you can actually see stuff! Crazy, right?

Rose and Vriska seem to share the same relief. As you three begin walking out of the block, your thoughts wander around the usual topics that have been plaguing your mind. You’ve thought about it a million times, who are the impostors and all of that useless blah blah. It almost leaves you unfazed now, which you didn’t even think was possible.

You exit the hallway and finish up your last task, parting ways with the girls and huffing in relief. You wonder what Gamzee and Dave were up to during the outage. They should, in theory, be fine. Even though both of them have displayed suspicious behavior, you really hate to say it but Dave and Gamzee are some of the last people left and it would suck bulge if either of them died. You aren’t saying that you’ve grown closer to them at all, you just think that their company isn’t as bad as it used to be. To you, at least. 

The task you’ve been doing is pretty exhausting but once you’re finally done with it, you decide to make a stop at the cafeteria to grab a snack and some water. As expected, the block is empty. The rest of the crew is probably busy, though it’s not like you’re surprised. Everyone is always busy.

Once your thirst and hunger have been quenched, the only thing that you’re left with is too much free time. You feel like playing investigator again and consequently, begin heading to the cameras block. 

Your walk there is short and it looks like nobody’s bothered to check the cameras in days. You turn on the screens, checking on each of them with disinterest until you spot something on the third screen.

Is that fucking blood? Hold on. It’s bright red. Like a human’s blood. 

...Or yours. But we don’t talk about that.

It’s either Dave or Rose.

You take a closer look and, yeah, there’s blood that seems to be smudged. There’s a pretty big puddle and if the source of it wasn’t offscreen, then you would be able to name who…

Died?

This screen displays the hallway right next to the navigation block. You don’t waste a second and begin heading there, staying as quiet as possible. What if the killer is still there? 

Once you arrive, you recognize small droplets of red, red blood, like the person was attacked but tried to escape before ultimately getting the fatal blow. You try to not think too hard about the way the crewmate got killed and begin to follow the blood before finding the body.

They killed Rose. 

This takes you a few seconds to process. Of course, the impostor would get rid of one of the smartest -- if not the smartest crewmate. Curse them. 

You look away, not wanting to stare at your friend’s inert corpse and fish out your tablet, hands shaky and breathing unsteady. Stressful situations like these have never done any good to your anxious ass. You hesitantly click on the ‘REPORT BODY’ button and begin heading towards the cafeteria. How are you even going to tell them about her death?


	12. Shit gets SPICY

“I found her in the navigation block. “ You barely keep your voice from shaking when you say that. One more crewmate down.

“What if it was a self-report?” Vriska suggests, an eyebrow raised at you with her arms crossed defensively around herself, “For an innocent guy, you sure seem to find a lot of bodies.” 

“What the actual fuck are you talking about, Serket?” You respond abrasively, without even thinking. Your face is instantly twisted into a scowling expression. Where the fuck is this information even from? This makes no sense!

“What I’m talking about? Come on, Karkat. Ever since this began, you’ve been by far the guy who found the most bodies. I refuse to believe that this is nothing but a coincidence, but trust me, you’re doing a pretty decent job at seeming innocent.” She has the audacity to grin at you when she says that and you’ve never wanted to hit someone in the face this much before. Though, you keep yourself from doing that for obvious reasons.

You shoot a look at everyone else at the table to see if they agree with her. Dave’s unreadable as usual, though, he’ll probably side with Vriska knowing your shitty luck. And Gamzee’s… well, he’s Gamzee. 

“So you’re telling me that I, the troll who’s done literally everything for the fucking crew is more suspicious than Gamzee over there?!” The purpleblood perks up when he hears his name.

“Don’t see what all of that motherfuckin’ noise is all about?” The usual lazy smile on his face has been replaced by a pensive expression, though, it’s got its fair share of confusion.

“We’re talking about you Karkat, not Gamzee. Deflecting it onto other people is pretty fucking suspicious if you ask me, though, that’s only my opinion.” Dave lets you know his thoughts on the matter with the infuriating calm and aloofness in his voice. How can someone be this fucking unbearable?

“What the hell are you talking about? I did every-fucking-thing I could for the crew and those are the thanks I get?!” You pause, noticing only now how loud and angered your voice became. Vriska’s eyebrows are lightly furrowed and seeing as nobody’s speaking, you take that as your cue to keep going with your rant.

“Everyone here has seen me working my ass off on a daily basis on those godforsaken useless tasks, literally everyone here has! And you’ve got the nerve to paint me as the impostor for your own personal gain? I’m the one who tried to prevent Dirk from dying and you’re the reason why he’s dead!” You turn to Dave and Gamzee, throwing your hands up in the air. “Dirk was innocent, there is no way in hell you can trust her egocentric ass again, right?! She never even faced any consequences for that!”

“I didn’t know that he was innocent, quit whining like a wriggler.” You notice the way her voice gets on the more defensive side. She should’ve expected backlash.

“I say we kill Vriska.” You cross your arms, understandably enough, entirely pissed off at her and this situation in general.

“Come on, all you’ve got against me is the stupid Dirk situation. We both know that it’s completely pointless.” Through her vicious grin, you notice a small background of nervousness, what, is she getting scared?

“The death of an innocent, which, let me remind you, Serket, was entirely your fault is pointless?!” You nearly choke on your own words, what kind of thought process is that?

“It’s either you or me, Vantas. If I die and I turn out to be innocent, it’s him. If he dies and he’s innocent, then kill me.” Her grin grows sickeningly wider and you barely keep yourself from punching it off of her face, because that’s definitely what she deserves. Why is she willing to take such a dumb and inconsiderate risk?

“You know what? Let’s do that! I don’t give a shit about dying anymore, as long as we get rid of the impostors!” Spite fills your words and you don’t feel regret. Dave’s obviously on Vriska’s side and you doubt Gamzee’s even going to vote. That’s it! Never in your entire life has something made you lose your shit so bad. You’re innocent and did your best to guarantee the survival of the crew and this is what you get.

Is this how you’re going to die?

“I mean, other than that, Karkat has never done anything really suspicious. I’ve seen him do his tasks and I’ve seen you over there do them too. I think that--” Dave gets brutally cut off by Vriska, not you, surprisingly.

“So if he’s sooooo innocent, why don’t you go ahead and kill me then?”

“No, that’s not really what I was saying” This time, he gets cut off by you.

“Vriska’s being an entitled brat again, ignore her. If she wants to die so bad, then she’s going to go! The number of shits I give about her survival are so abysmally low they could even be mistaken as negative! That’s how much I care!” You spit out. 

A small look at the people around you tells you that maybe, you shouldn’t have gotten so carried off. Dave is wincing a bit, Vriska’s eyebrows are skewed together and Gamzee has a somewhat surprised expression on his face. He probably wasn’t even expecting you to yell. This really is an unenjoyable situation for everyone here.

“You heard me. If I’m innocent, go ahead and kill him.” 

“Bro. No, I don’t want to take the risk of killing yet another innocent.”

“For fuck’s sake, just vote for Vriska. You heard the bitch! She wants to get voted off to prove her innocent, let her do that!” Your response is definitely harsher than it should be, but she’s the reason why you are so riled up at the moment.

And with that, the voting phase starts. 

You don’t hesitate to vote out Vriska. She has to be the impostor, her bluff isn’t working at all. 

The time between the beginning and the end of the voting phase feels like an eternity. You’re definitely scared shitless seeing as you don’t really have a deathwish. 

Once it ends, you look at the vote, tensing up just from the anticipation and apprehension you’ve been experiencing. You’ve got like, what, 50/50 chances of dying? It all comes down to who Dave voted for. 

When you finally see who Dave voted for, you huff out the breath you’ve been holding this entire time in relief. Though, with relief comes confusion. Why didn’t Dave kill you? Why did he vote for Vriska instead? You make a mental note to keep those questions for later.

“Kill Karkat.” And those are pretty much her last words. You can’t help but feel a small bit of guilt as you watch her leave.

\-----------------------

So it turned out that she was innocent. Her out of all people, seriously? You don’t even know how to feel about that. The look Dave gave you when he saw that Vriska was in fact, completely innocent despite her suspicious behavior still made you feel bad. Pretty terrible, in fact. You tried to ask him why he did that but he was pretty short and dismissive with his answers and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t take it pretty badly. Crewmates are supposed to communicate with each other, for fuck’s sake! He brought this upon himself! If he seriously thinks that this is your fault, then he’s wrong. If you were so guilty then he should’ve picked you. He’s got no one to blame but himself.

Now this leaves you with two suspects. What if Dave was actually the impostor? Perhaps, his vote on Vriska was only a tactic to gain your trust.

But there’s also Gamzee. You honestly don’t even know if you should have suspected him from the beginning, as he’s quite the unusual character. A part of you tells you that there’s nothing to worry about, he’s your best friend and he would never hurt you. Or anyone else, really. Worrying about his innocence is straight-up foolish because it’s obvious, isn’t it? Gamzee has to be innocent. It’s Dave.

But another part of you goes exactly against that. What if it was your clown friend all along? You’ve never seen him hurt anything willingly, though, he’s felt pretty off during the past few days. Gamzee has never really been the talkative type but he always sought out conversations with you or others from time to time, and he’s been real quiet lately. You don’t really know if he fully grasps this whole thing, maybe you should’ve explained it to him? You should try to find him and ask about all of this. 

You hate how conflicting your different thinking processes can be.

You decide to put all of these worries aside and focus on completing your tasks for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! fuck exams. anyway i donno about you guys but I've been having an absolute BLAST playing hiveswap act 2.


	13. Hope

You’re assuming that the impostor will either kill you or the other crewmate. There’s no way you are winning this, after all. It’s been a few hours since Vriska’s death and you’re already anticipating your imminent death. How would the impostor even kill you? With a knife? Or would he strangle you? You’re eventually going to find out now, aren’t you?

God. This is depressing.

You bring your knees a bit closer to your chest, observing the vast expanse of outer space that stretches all out on the glass windows, providing you with a beautiful yet melancholic sight. You never really took the time to appreciate the colorful yet deadly space as you’ve mostly been overworked with tasks and the whole “finding out who the murderers are” shtick but now that you can actually take your time to appreciate this stuff, your bloodpusher aches.

The moment where you actually realize how much you’ve missed out on, was it the scenery, or interacting with all of those unknown people before they died, or anything else that’s gone now, you get overflowed with regret. Everything seems so done. Over. You could go ahead and trigger an emergency meeting, but for what? You have no clue who it is anyway. 

You tried and failed miserably. All of those deaths might just be your fault now! If you actually blamed the right people instead of stalling on some dumb shit that barely even makes any pathetic ounce sense to you now, you could’ve actually saved them from their death. Why are you one of the last crewmates alive? Why you in particular?

People like Kanaya, Rose, and Dirk would’ve clearly been much better at investigating this whole thing. Maybe your lack of actual intelligence is the reason why you’re still alive? The impostor probably focused on the people that were actually a danger to him. It makes sense, obviously. You can’t help but feel a little insulted at that.

Why’d she have to blame you in particular? Why not Dave instead? There are so many questions plaguing your thinkpan, despite the clear lack of answers. You’re never getting answers. Are those seriously your last moments? Just being an angsty piece of shit?

You could at least try to fight.

But you don’t have the motivation to do so.

Why aren’t you accepting it now? There’s clearly no hope left.

You keep watching the shiny lights in space with half-closed eyes, wondering which one is home.

You really want to go home. 

…

Your name is Karkat Vantas.  
And it feels like all hope is lost.

So far, you’ve pretty much ignored all of your tasks and instead, began having an existential crisis concerning your inevitable doom. Everyone does that when faced with the realization that death is near, right?

The only thing that pulls you out of your thoughts are some footsteps behind you, immediate reaction being you perking up. “Gamzee?!” You say, before realizing that it’s just Dave. A small shadow of a smile ghosts over his face.

“Nah, it’s me. The douchebag you hate the most.” He briefly responds, making his way right next to you. You narrow your eyes at him, unsure of what he’s trying to do.

“Did you come here to kill me?” You grumble at the boy sitting next to you, glancing over at him. He looks tired too, though, it’s hard to get a real idea of how he’s doing when there are shades obscuring half of his face.

“Nope. Are you going to kill me?” He asks, quirking an eyebrow at you. 

“I wasn’t planning to, no matter how much of an insufferable prick you can be.” 

“Flattering. What are you even doing here, all alone looking like some emo teen anyway?”

You aren’t sure you know what an emo teen is, but you roll with it. “I was thinking.”

He shifts into a more comfortable position on the floor, keeping a safe distance away from you, probably for the better. “We should get rid of Gamzee before he kills us.” He says.

“Why?” You incredulously ask.

“Why? I’m not the impostor and it seems that you aren’t either.” He pauses, “Gamzee is sus as fuck, bro, I’m telling you.” Dave continues, keeping the infuriatingly calm and collected tone.

“What if you’re lying?” You tilt your head.

“If you’re accusing me of being the impostor, don’t you think I would’ve killed you by now?”

He’s got a point. Instead of responding to him, you simply redirect your eyes back to outer space. Dave’s eyes remain a bit longer on you before he does the same thing. 

Maybe you should do as he says. But you don’t want to kill Gamzee, or anyone really. The brief silence that had settled between you two had gotten broken again by the red astronaut’s voice.

“Can I ask you about Terezi? Like, how things were between you two?”

Oh, fuck. Terezi. You had been trying to forget about her but you guess not.

“What the fuck kind of question is that?”

“More specifically, did I actually ruin the bond between you two-”

You decide to cut him off. “Look, asshat, I know we should be cooperating and shit because we’re literally going to die if we work against each other, but I’m not answering that. It’s personal shit that even the most pan-damaged wriggler could figure out on his own.”

“... And is that the reason why you hate me so much?”

Is he fucking hitting on you? Your black quadrant is as empty as this fucker’s thinkpan and you intend to let it stay that way.

“What the actual fuck are you implying?” You ask.

“That you hate me a lot for no actual reason?” 

“I have plenty of reasons to do so, grubchute.“

“And you aren’t going to tell me why? See, dude, I’m actually trying to do something useful here. If we’re going to be the last two survivors, we should at least get our shit together.”

He has a point. Again. You hesitate a bit, biting your lip before giving in.

“It feels like you replaced me. Terezi had absolutely no interest in actually, I don’t know, being my friend at all anymore when she became yours.” You say.

“How? I thought you guys were pretty good friends, I mean, that’s what she told me.”

“But what if I wanted to be more than that?!” You try to keep your voice quiet. 

This seems to perplex him a bit. His mouth curls downwards, looking pensive.

“Well. I don’t know. She wasn’t into you, that’s all I really knew. But why do you keep acting like it’s my fault?” He says back. Fuck, you don’t want to go into this.

“She’s fucking dead, assface. It doesn’t even matter anymore.” You sourly snarl, standing up. 

Dave winces a bit at that. You don’t really believe his whole ‘trying to end things in a good note’ act. What he’s doing is basically shoving the fact that he’s better than you in every way possible right in your fucking face. 

“Karkat.” He’s also getting up, seemingly not wanting to let the topic go.

“What?!” You glare at him, turning back. His silhouette darkens significantly when his back is facing the bright outer space, adding a bit to the whole dramatic effect.

“Look, I wasn’t actually trying to… uh, I don’t know. Take her away from you if that makes any sense?” He says. You notice a bit of hesitation in his voice, like he’s trying to not offend you.

“Well, that’s exactly what you did.” 

“Jesus, stop being so petty for once. I didn’t actually want to do any of that. She was just cool, I guess.”

“Well, no matter how cool you thought she was, she’s fucking dead now and none of this matters!” You burst out.

“Karkat. Look. I’m sorry this all happened and shit, but you really need to stop acting like it’s entirely my fault.” He crosses his arms, almost in a protective fashion. He continues, “We can sort this out later. Right now, we need to trigger an emergency meeting and kill Gamzee.” 

You’re a little skeptical, and with the amount of pressure that’s on you right now, making that choice is difficult. Gamzee’s been your best friend ever since you were still an idiotic little wriggler. That isn’t an easy choice, but everything that’s happened does point at his supposed suspiciousness. With a hesitant nod, you give in.

“Fine, fuckwad, we’ll kill him. It’s not like there’s anything else to do anyway.”

For a moment, you can notice a relieved smile on Dave’s face and this time he doesn’t try to erase it off of his face. That’s probably the first time you’ve seen him genuinely smile, and fuck, you still 100% hate the guy. But there’s some sympathy in your hate too, you suppose. 

You two are the last crewmates and you’ve been through an equal amount of terrible shit. And you’re going to get out of this together. The spark of hope that’s been absent for so long in your chest lights up again, like a candle that hasn’t been used in sweeps.

You return a half-assed smile as you both make your way over to the cafeteria, and for what feels like hours, your eyes lock on the emergency button. Dave’s behind you and he gives you an encouraging gesture, and once you get close enough, you firmly press it. 

Fuck. You still aren’t ready to kill off your friend.

The alarm rings, and soon enough, you can make out a tall shadow in the hallway, walking ominously towards the both of you before the meeting starts.

You glance downwards, not ready to look at who you’re about to kill. It’s like killing Sollux all over again. 

“So, do you have any last words?” The human’s voice saves you from your thoughts, and you assume that it’s directed at the clown in front of you two. He frowns a little, and looks over to you, opening his mouth to say something.

“Did my best bro side with the blasphemous motherfucker over there?”

You honestly don’t know how to respond to this. Dave does it for you.

“Did you think he was going to side with the impostor? C’mon now, bro.”

You glare at him, and come up with your own reply to that, “Fuck, Gamzee. Look. I’m sorry. Though it’s not like I could do anything else.” You try to apologize, expecting a response to that.

Instead, he barks out a laugh. Not the sweet kind of laugh, no, it sounds much more sinister.

And now there’s the tense as fuck silence that usually happens only during the voting phase, which ends fairly quickly this time. The person who’s getting voted out this time is pretty obvious. The look he throws your way before accepting his defeat turns your blood ice-cold and you honestly won’t ever forget the mental image of your best friend right about to die. Fuck.

At least you avenged all of the dead people. That’s what matters, right? 

You look away, beginning to feel sick. You won. But all of your friends are dead and the only person you’re left with is a moron. Well. He might not be that much of a moron, but he’s definitely a douchebag. 

“You look like a puppy that just got kicked like, I dunno, fifty times in a row. Dude. We fucking won.” 

“Victory means nothing when everyone’s fucking dead, does it?” You sourly respond.

“At least we’re not dead.” 

That response is almost funny to you.

For a second, you could almost see the silhouettes and shadows of your dead friends. Like they were coming back, and none of this actually happened.

Maybe that was real victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy FUCK I acutally finshed this fic. it was supposed to be a warm up for my possible future works and it ended up being 20K words long, and its also my first actually published fanfic on this website hahaha. anyway thanks to everyone who read my chapters, it was a really great experience on my side. also I'm sorry, it took very long for me to upload the last chapter but hey, I DID IT!!!! (also this was finished at 3a,m so don't expect it to make sense)


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